Agent of Chaos
by Haleine Delail
Summary: Someone or something is attempting to reorganise time and space as we know it, which will render all reality thin and unstable. The Doctor, of course, must stop this insult to existence! He will do this with the help of a brilliant and willing Companion... who may not be entirely what she seems. Will agents of chaos succeed, or agents of order?
1. Chapter 1

**Back to the game! My usual Ten/Martha M.O. resumes. This story is a stand-alone (at least as far as I know), so the relationship is more or less canon here. I don't know if there will be time or space (ha!) for romance in this story... I don't yet have a "feel" for it. Which is weird for me. :-)**

 **There's not much to say about this story (yet), except there will be A LOT going on, a lot of questions and mysteries introduced, and I hope you enjoy and stick with them! And please take a moment to leave a review when you get to the end of the chapter! Reviews are love.**

 **Here we go!**

* * *

CHAPTER 1

It was a clear, sunny morning in London, in the spring of 2007. Miss Jones, a medical student, and a group of her cohorts, went on rounds with one of the attending retired-surgeons-turned-overpaid-consultants. She did not like working with Mr. Stoker - he had a knack for making otherwise capable students feel small and incompetent.

Case in point, when they visited Ms. Finnegan, admitted with some dizziness, he sarcastically called them "Britain's finest." This was just before they nervously put in their two cents on Finnegan's condition, and he rather gleefully shot them down cold. Later, he implied that this group of students were an "affliction" upon him.

Later still, upon meeting a patient known as John Smith, he dared Miss Jones to "amaze" him by seeing what she could find, as ailing the patient. As it turned out, Miss Jones heard two separate, distinct heartbeats coming from the patient. She did not know how to react, but her delay caused Stoker to wonder aloud at the safety of any future generations, as it seemed to him that Miss Jones could not actually _locate_ a human heart. He put snarky, sardonic pressure on her to come up with a diagnosis, which she did shoddily in her confusion, and which he promptly stomped upon.

Miss Jones, though, was fairly well able to separate herself and her ego from Mr. Stoker's abuse. Some of her attending physicians she really respected, and she relished constructive criticism from them. Some of them she... well, she respected them _less_. She was never insolent toward them, and always listened to what they had to say regardless (even mean and impatient people could have knowledge to impart, even if it was simply about how _not_ to do things). People like Stoker, she just had to take with a grain of salt. This experience was part of the game, and it was a necessary evil if she was to get where she was going.

Though, she felt a little sorry for Oliver and Julia, who were not as well-equipped for fending off Stoker's brand of belittling. Which was ridiculous, because Oliver Morgenstern was one of the most compassionate human beings she had ever met, and Julia Swales was one of the most thoroughly knowledgeable medical students currently in the game. Perhaps those qualities made them more sensitive than she?

No matter. Her mind was mostly on her family today anyway.

Though, the man with two hearts was indeed something interesting to think about. For a few reasons, actually...

Perhaps she would bring up the anomaly with one of the cooperating physicians in the next day or so. Though not Mr. Stoker. He did not deserve to have this shared with him.

* * *

The man known to the hospital's staff as John Smith noticed the heckling tone of Mr. Stoker's voice, and reckoned the pompous consultant was probably a bomb of insecurity of some sort. He knew, though, that to get to this point, year three or four of medical school, those kids must have some mettle, and a denigrating middle-manager-sort shouldn't be enough to deter them from becoming good doctors.

Perhaps Stoker thought he was building character in these young people, by being such an arse to them.

Then again, maybe he was just an arse.

Stoker, though, he filed away as ultimately unimportant and most likely harmless.

But Miss Jones caught his eye. And not just his eye. His ear. His sensibilities.

She'd listened to his dual heartbeat and not freaked out, nor told anyone. He'd winked at her knowingly, and she looked back at him steadily, with conspiracy in her eyes. There were her cryptic words about taking off his tie - she was telling him she had seen him before... but was she speaking in code? And there was the mischievous look she'd given him as the group moved away from his bedside, and she had trailed a bit behind them.

He had to admit, she was lovely. She was beautiful, in fact, and different. She was small, watchful and dark-skinned. All of these things were a coup to him... though he tried not to think too hard about it. It would ruin all of the surprise and mystery for later.

He decided that he couldn't just cool his heels in this hospital as long as she was here, so he would risk a quick consult with her, just to get a read on things. Maybe he could move on from this project, or maybe not.

He pulled on a dark blue bathrobe and followed the group of students without being seen. He did not hear them speaking to patients or being further battered verbally by Mr. Stoker - all of it was non-essential to him. He just wanted to watch where they went so he could see if he could get Miss Jones alone. He wondered if perhaps she'd get a break soon and come looking for _him,_ but then again, he could count on nothing. She had the advantage - she seemed to know what was up. So he followed.

After about an hour, the group disassembled and seemed to take a breather. Miss Jones went to the ladies', then made her way down the hall to the locker room where doctors, nurses, orderlies and med students stored their personal effects. She appeared to be completely alone in the room...

"Hello," he said, standing at the end of the row of lockers.

She jumped. "Oh!" Then she pressed her hand to her chest. "You startled me!"

"Sorry."

"Mr. Smith, you really shouldn't be in here... shouldn't be out of bed. Does Dr. Ernst know..."

"Stop it now," he chided, taking a couple of steps forward. "We haven't got much time."

She pulled her phone from inside her locker and took a couple of steps back away from him. "Time for what?"

"How long have you been here? Infiltrating this hospital?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Uh" she riffed, her eyes searching him. "Well, I've been working here for about three months, if that's what you're asking."

"Three months?" he asked, disbelieving. "Blimey, where have I been?"

"Mr. Smith..."

"Have the plasma coils been working on the hospital for that long, or do you have some... prior knowledge?"

"Excuse me?"

"Is there some kind of repercussion that I need to know about?" he wanted to know. "Or even one that I _don't_ need to know about?"

She denied knowing anything of what he was talking about. Though, he did not seem to be listening to her.

He put one hand behind his back and asked, "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"How the hell should I know?" she shrugged.

"I must not be paying much attention," he mused. "Listen, we need to talk properly, you and I..."

"No, you need to return to your bed right now, or I need to call security." She was surprisingly calm, and even smiling slightly, even as she brandished her mobile phone.

* * *

And so, John Smith, better known as the Doctor, backed off, with apologies. But now, he was rather confused himself.

Something was clearly wrong. Either she didn't remember him (how could she not? That was something to investigate, in and of itself.) or she was in some kind of deep cover and could not risk any sort of complicit remarks. But then, why the eye-flashes earlier? Why the conspiratorial smirks?

Either way, she'd made it perfectly plain that she was going to deny any involvement in the plasma coil investigation. Translation: she wanted him to leave her alone. At least for now.

Another hour and a half, and then the lunch hour arrived. And with it, a peculiar upward rain that the Doctor understood was caused by electromagnetic activity from the plasma coils. It was an H2O scoop that transported the entire hospital to the moon. Only later did he understand that it was an alien race with no jurisdiction on Earth, from _above_ , attempting to contain the hospital, in the only way they could. It was not, in fact, someone or something on the inside.

And again, Mr. Smith and Miss Jones found themselves crossing paths.

He attempted contact again. This time, they were rather beyond the calling of security. She did not urge him back to bed, or seem to treat him as a mental case. This was a step in the right direction. If they were going to work together, she _had_ to concede _something_ to him, deep cover or not. It would just be a waste of time not to.

And in the next few minutes, the things she said only built on the case, that he was right about her. He called her "brilliant," and learned that she'd chosen the undercover moniker of "Martha Jones." He liked it. He wondered where that had come from. John Smith was common as a cold, it was a go-to name for anonymity. Martha Jones had a similar ring of everyday to it, and yet, it had that ring of not-so-everyday as well.

She pointed out to her friend that the air would have been sucked out already, if it were going to be, in the atmosphere on the moon. She rebutted his claim that they might die, simply with, "We might not." And out on the balcony, when she'd forced him to confess who he was, he'd said, "I'm the Doctor," as if she didn't know. Her answer was, "Me too... if I ever pass my exams."

Well. That clinched it.

And then she told him that he had to _earn_ the right to be called _Doctor_ by her. (Did she know something he didn't? Well, clearly she knew lots that he didn't... but what was _that_ about? It wasn't the first time he'd contemplated having to _earn_ that name, but... yikes.)

But then there was the thing about Canary Wharf, and her cousin. Her timid confession of believing in extraterrestrials, and her seemingly genuine surprise at seeing the Judoon crossing the lunar surface.

It was all dizzying. For a while.

* * *

They chased through the hospital staying one step ahead of the Judoon. They cloak-and-daggered about, investigating and surmising, and Martha Jones let the Doctor take the lead.

Hours later, by the time they came back to Mr. Stoker's office, and she tenderly, respectfully, closed the eyes of the rude consultant's corpse, given the evidence he had seen, in spite of _some_ indicators of his initial assessment, he was now more or less convinced that he had been mistaken. She was not who he thought she was.

But she'd been _so brilliant._ And it wasn't the first time they'd met. But she was totally, seemingly, oblivious to that fact... so who the hell was she?

And when they exited the office, looked to their left and saw the Judoon coming at them, he knew he had to slow them down, in order to get to the MRI in time _not_ to barbecue half the Earth.

In that moment, his state of _more or less convinced_ necessarily became _one hundred per cent certain_. He had to make a snap decision, and it was the only thing he could think of. He needed something to make the Judoon stop moving forward for a few minutes. He could do that by confusing the scanners, but the way things were going, it looked like Martha Jones was going to register as purely human.

"Just forgive me for this," he said to her. "It could save a thousand lives. It means nothing... honestly nothing."

And he kissed her. Well and truly. Kissed her like he meant it.

He'd been hoping that traces of his saliva on her would be just enough to make the Judoon's hand-held thingie go haywire and make them wonder what the hell she was. (Perhaps if they ever found out, they could tell him.)

If there had been anything amiss at that point, both of their sensibilities would have tossed them apart in a nanosecond and ended that kiss as an assault on space and time. But nothing unpleasant happened. In fact, the kiss was _very_ pleasant. He actually would have liked it go on longer, but he had an MRI to get to...

Damn.

Did this mean he had a huge ego? No, no... that notion had gone out the window. It just meant that he rather liked kissing beautiful women - no big revelation there.

* * *

But humans can sometimes harbour mystery, innocent as they often tended to be. There was nothing in their interactions that suggested that Martha Jones might be up to no good, but he still had to know. If nothing else, something had been set into motion today - something big - that much was clear, and he reckoned it was his job to make sure that that _something_ was seen to.

And, well... he liked her. Can't fault him for that, right? Cool in a crisis, clever, self-sacrificing, and not, in any way, bad to look at.

"I just thought, since you saved my life, and I've got a brand-new sonic screwdriver that needs road-testing, you might fancy a trip," was what he said to her.

But in his mind...

Well, sometimes humans harbour mystery and something big was in motion. For now, he'd just leave it at that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Already a gear switch! It will feel as if the story is going in a completely new direction... and it is. For now. ;-)**

 **Thanks to those of you following and reviewing. Hey, why not do both?**

* * *

CHAPTER 2

Blimey, he was glad he'd chosen her, and then decided to keep her.

What had he been thinking, trying to dump her off back at her flat?

Sure, having a Companion could be a pain in the arse, with a load of danger he otherwise wouldn't have to deal with. Because, without her getting stuck on the eject-pod of the Pentallian and needing rescue, he'd never have had to hang outside the ship, and never would have become possessed by the sun.

But then, he also never would have realised that the sun was alive, and had been unceremoniously strip-mined for fuel. The only way to know that was to be infiltrated by the consciousness of the star itself. _Maybe_ he could have worked that out on his own, but it probably would have taken a lot longer than forty-two minutes, and then he and the Pentallian's crew would have been effectively pressure-cooked.

And even if he'd been able to see that infiltration by the sun was a necessary means to an end, there would have been no Companion present to blast him with ice. That had taken some mettle, he knew - he had not been ignorant to the terror in her voice. Not as much mettle as it took to _endure_ the blast, but he was more than happy to accept the brunt of the impact most times, especially when life and limb were at stake. Martha Jones, he reminded himself, cannot regenerate.

And so, once again, he had a full-time Companion with a key to the TARDIS and universal roaming on her mobile phone. That made him happy. He rather wished he'd been able to get the hell over himself, and take her on as a permanent fixture a couple of months sooner.

Of course, his trepidation had not been without reason. It came from the fact that a) he was preoccupied with trying to work out who she was, and if she was someone important to the trajectory of human history, or even non-human history. And, b) she clearly fancied him something fierce, and quite honestly, he did not want to go there with her. Well, it wasn't _her,_ exactly - _she_ was spectacular. It was the fact that everything was so up-in-the-air with her. Not to mention his own rather recent heartbreak, still featuring as gaping wounds upon his soul.

And yeah, he knew that Martha was a totally different creature to the one who had occupied that spare bedroom before. And he knew that she could and would willingly go a long way toward helping him heal. But then, he'd have to _let her in._ And what if it happened again - another Bad Wolf Bay? What then?

And so... Companion. Great friend. Arm's length.

Well, at least an elbow's reach.

* * *

For several months, it was _status quo_ : running, jumping, escaping. Three times, they saved the Earth: once from becoming a barren "blasted heath" (Carrionites), once from a one-hemisphere inferno (Florence Finnegan) and once from hostile takeover (bloody Daleks). They chased down monsters of the genetically-engineered persuasion, of course rescued the Pentallian (sort of), and got captured each _at least_ two or three times. But, they had just as many fun adventures... seeing the colours of the universe, new planets (at least to her), foreign skies and phenomena that no other human being had ever seen.

On the scale of the Doctor's life and experience, this was all smallish potatoes. He was glad not to have another Canary Wharf on his hands for now - nothing threatening existence as we know it. Nothing to potentially snuff out all life in the universe, break down reality, etc. It was all fairly innocuous by his standards...

Until one day.

"What the hell was that?" Martha shouted from the floor as the TARDIS jostled like mad, having knocked her onto her derrière upon impact. She got to her feet, clung to the console and looked annoyed/worried askance at the Doctor.

He squinted at the screen, holding onto the side of the console himself, as the vessel careened in a different direction.

"Hold on!" he shouted, as he tried to get control. "Give me a mo' - someone's playing Police Box Pinball!"

There was another impact and another stomach-turning careen before he seemed to get control, and the ship calmed down.

When he could let go, he buried both hands in his hair, and his eyes widened. "We've just bumped into the wall of the Time Vortex."

"The Time Vortex has walls?"

"No," he said, now breathing hard with nervousness. "It doesn't."

"Well... wha... I mean... wha..."

"The Vortex is inifinite, and it's almost total chaos," he said. "Nothing is rooted in the Vortex... events flow. They evolve. They hop about within the Vortex, which is this...sort of _cone thing_ that is constantly changing. Reality morphs, but also is ever-extant even as time passes. Because time doesn't really ever pass."

Martha shrugged. "You've always said it's non-linear. A while back, I ceased to think of time _lines._ Believe you me, that was a rough adjustment."

He shook his head. "Nothing in time is on a line. Nothing in time stands still. Even fixed points meander about within the cone, and other things move about with them in clusters. That's why not just anyone can time-travel. That's why it takes a TARDIS to do it semi-smoothly, or a highly-specialised manipulator to do it _at all_. Time coordinates are in flux. Medieval Japan is sometimes further away than others... even _my_ highly-developed senses can't locate it at any given time."

Martha approached him. He'd been staring at the same spot on the screen since he began speaking. "Well," she said softly, now standing quite close. "What are your highly-developed senses telling you now?"

"That chaos is the natural order," he murmured.

She nodded subtly. "And if there are walls?"

"Walls around chaos?" he asked. Then he chuckled. "If the Vortex had walls, it would mean that events could be contained, that the number of _things_ that can happen in the universe would be finite. Although, maybe that's not true. I suppose, you could extend the length of the Vortex, more or less infinitely, and still... oh God," he groaned, lifting his eyes to a spot on the wall behind her.

"What? What's that _oh God_?"

When he didn't answer, just continued to stare at the wall, her heart began to quicken.

"Wait, Doctor, " she all but shouted. "When you said, _you could extend the length of the Vortex_..."

"Yeah, to accommodate all the stuff that's going to get squashed, now that things are narrowing."

"Do you actually mean that someone could do that? There's someone who has that kind of power?"

"Well," he said subtly. "Time Lords."

"But they're gone."

"Yep."

"So..." she said, waiting again, another few seconds. "Doctor, talk to me!"

He took a deep, quick breath, and began to speak again, this time, making eye-contact. "Martha, it might not surprise you to know that some of the Time Lords' greatest, fiercest enemies were beings who wanted things nice and tidy. They wanted stuff done _their way_ , or no way. Protocol. Homogeny. Correct answers. Logic. Record-keeping. Duty. Black and white, us versus them. No grey area, no co-existence."

"Yeah, I've met Daleks," she said. "Doesn't surprise me at all."

"Not just the Daleks," he said. "Cybermen, Sontarans, Autons, Fenricians, The Great Intelligence. To some extent, the Judoon, the Sisters of Plenitude, even humans... when they get organised."

Martha contemplated this. "But I thought the Time Lords kept _order_ in the universe."

"As I said," he told her. "Chaos is the natural order. Actually, it's more accurate to say that there is a _balance_ of chaos and order in the universe, and the Time Lords could see that. They - we - have perspective over these things: what needs to stay in disarray, and what needs to be orderly. Most of that perception has to do with time itself, and how events fit together."

"So, the Vortex is one of those things that needs to stay chaotic in order to function."

"Exactly."

"Like politics," she said with a smirk.

He smirked back. "Absolutely."

"But it still doesn't answer the question of who is doing it," she said. "I mean, can you narrow it down by species or something?"

"Well, it's doubtful that it's any of the big ones - not the Daleks, not the Cybers... they would be more interested in converting or destroying others, to bring their twisted kind of order." At that, he began to circle nervously around the console. "'Cause you were right, Martha, that's a hell of a lot of power. Who has it? Who could put walls around the Vortex, extending the length to contain the lost breadth? Blimey! They would almost have had to appropriate Time Lord technology to do it... or held the Time Agency hostage or something - is that even possible?"

"What's the Time Agency?"

Suddenly he stopped. "Wait."

"Wait for what?"

"Ohhh," he groaned, clutching his head once again.

"What? Doctor, what?"

"I haven't been thinking back far enough," he told her. Maniacally, he approached her and grabbed both her shoulders. "I've just been brainstorming on things I've seen personally! The Time Lords are ancient! They go back billions of years! There's a whole flippin' arsenal of nasty things I've never even touched!"

"Oh," she said, with her eyebrows raised. "Okay, that's a start. A daunting start, but..."

He let go of her, and leaned against the console, looking at her with narrowed eyes. "I think I know, Martha."

"Well... good! What do we do?"

"Not sure yet," he said, eerily still.

Again, she contemplated, then took advantage of the silence. "Doctor, I'm not questioning you, 'cause, you know, you're the Time Lord and I'm... not. But I just don't understand. If the Vortex can be extended in length, as you said, to accommodate the loss of breadth, and all events will still fit, then what's the problem? Initially, it seemed like you were worried that this would limit the amount of stuff that could happen in the universe, which actually doesn't sound good. But if it will all fit, in theory, then..."

"Okay, I'll show you."

He grabbed her hand and pulled her down the hall. They went down a random corridor, and stopped at a random door.

"Children's ward?" Martha asked, referring to the label on the door.

"Yeah, all TARDISes used to have them," he said, turning the knob. "The console is designed for six navigators to be out in the open universe indefinitely."

"Ah, I see. Need a place for the families."

"Right," he said, letting go of her hand, and switching on the light.

The room was stuffed with playthings - brightly-coloured apparatuses that were clearly _toys_ , even though they were clearly also Gallifreyan. Things were organised in drawers and cabinets, containers and shelves. From its appearance, the room could have been used yesterday, though it also could have sat this way, unused for centuries, which was, Martha knew, likely the case.

The Doctor began to go through the contents of the drawers, and came away with two handfuls of what looked like little green men.

He moved over to a table that was shin-high to him, and set it all down. Then he went back to a drawer and extracted what looked to Martha like a toy tractor. He knelt at the table and set the green plastics upright, in no particular order, all over the table. To her delight, they looked almost exactly like the little green army men that children on Earth played with. They reminded her of the film _Toy Story,_ except the uniforms were a bit different.

"Now, imagine this table is the Vortex, and the green men are events in time," he said.

"Okay."

"See how stuff is spread out all over the place? No lines, no particular order?"

"Yes."

He handed her the little tractor. Upon closer inspection, though it was clearly some kind of over-land vehicle, it was differently-shaped than any truck or tractor she had ever seen.

"Now, try to navigate through events, get from one event to another," he said. He touched two of the figures. "Try to get from this little man to this little man."

Martha knelt at the table and did what he asked, feeling a little silly. She resisted the urge to make _vroom_ noises as she did so.

"Good," the Doctor said with finality. "Now, jostle the table."

"Jostle it?"

"Yeah. Nudge it so it moves, say, one centimetre."

She gave the table a small shove, and it moved about a centimetre away from her. All of the figurines stayed upright, even if just barely, more or less where they were.

"Okay, now..." he said, dashing to the other end of the room, and diving into another drawer. He came back with a spool of burgundy-coloured ribbon. He uncoiled the whole spool and tied one end to the doorknob. He motioned for her to come near, and then said, "Here, hold the other end. Hold the ribbon taut. Don't let go."

He went back to the table and gathered all the little green soldiers in his hands. He placed them in a line along the ribbon, and Martha began to see what would happen.

When he finished doing that, he very carefully handed her the not-tractor toy, and said, "Get from point-A to point-B, now that all the events are linear."

"I see," she said, with a sigh, realising that it couldn't really be done.

"Mm-hm," he said. "Jostle it."

She plucked the ribbon very lightly with one finger, not moving it a fraction as much as she had moved the table, and all the little men fell off.

They both knelt to pick up the toys, and Martha said, "So, a linear timeline would make time-travel impossible, as well as render unstable... what, all of time?"

"All of time equals all of reality. One little pluck at the string, and..." he gestured to the little green toys littering the floor around him. "Well, you see what happens to life in the universe."


	3. Chapter 3

**Wow, long absence. Well, in the time since I've last posted, my life has been effectively uprooted, and that is NOT an exaggeration! I am determined to remain me, keeping my sanity and whatnot, and that means writing and posting as often as I can. :-) I could use some of your thoughts as incentive (as always), though. It keeps the writer's spirit alive!**

 **If you'll recall, someone is trying to reorganize time onto a linear stream, which, as the Doctor demonstrates, would be disastrous. Not just for himself as a time-traveler, but would weaken all of existence!**

* * *

CHAPTER 3

The Doctor slumped into a blue armchair in the corner, and Martha folded herself onto one of the children's chairs. In his lap, he held a plastic drawer, containing the little green men, the ribbon and the toy that was not a tractor.

"So, I get why time can't really be linear," she said, resting her chin in her hand, her elbow on her knee. "But what are we really afraid of? Is someone going to come along and pluck it like a big guitar string?"

"Well, not, like, some giant hand from the heavens," he said. "But one good strum from a disturbance... a time anomaly of some sort, and..." He made a gesture with his fingers that signified everything would fall to pieces.

"A time anomaly. Like what?"

"Like a time traveller with knowledge of the Vortex in his guts, encoded in his DNA," he answered darkly, looking at her wearily.

"Oh!"

"Like a time machine with Vortex in its heart."

She frowned deeply. "Blimey."

"Maybe even a human female who travels alongside them."

Her eyebrows raised. "Even me?"

"Yep."

There was a long silence while Martha wrapped her mind around all of that. Her stomach sank, while her brain reached out into all directions. And then she asked, her voice hoarse and timid, "So does that mean we're trapped?"

"Not as yet," he said. "But we'd better get a move on stopping this thing before we do get trapped."

"So, at a certain point, you and the TARDIS and I... we'll just have to _stop_? Stop moving forever, or risk destroying all of time?"

"Well, maybe not _destroying_ it," he said, by way of reassurance. "Moments across reality would simply begin falling through space like intangible debris. Every millisecond would be separated from every other millisecond, each frozen. But technically - _technically_ \- everything would still exist."

"Oh, that's tremendously reassuring, thanks," she practically growled at him. "But the question still stands."

"Okay. I suppose, in theory, we would be trapped. We'd have to stand still forever... in the TARDIS, not travelling, just hanging out in space, making no waves, affecting absolutely nothing."

"Fan-bloody-tastic."

"But we wouldn't be trapped for long because, to be honest, there are time anomalies happening all over the place. It doesn't take a Time Lord or a TARDIS. For one thing, I have people who've travelled with me speckled and freckled over this great universe of ours, in different time periods - all of them are just as dangerous as you are. Some of them more so."

"Dangerous. I'm dangerous," she said, despairingly, pleading with the ceiling.

"Yeah, but not like me. And Martha, I've got a friend who can't die. He literally cannot be killed. He's like a walking time-bomb if time becomes linear."

"How's that?"

"Oh, he got exterminated by Daleks, then was doused with energy from the Vortex itself which brought him back to life. And now, for lack of a better explanation, he exists on more planes of the Vortex than he should. The point is, Martha, he's _a fact_ \- a moving fixed-point. And fixed-points, by definition, should not be moved, per se. He should have been dead sometime in the future, and I know he's knocking about somewhere, bookending the twentieth century with that toothy smile of his - the TARDIS can kind of feel him. Anyway, if he runs too fast one day near some strong electromagnetic activity - and being him, that's not out of the realm of possibility..."

"Okay, I get it."

"Plus... well, frankly, just the right memory evoking the right emotion in the right person could constitute a time anomaly."

"What?"

"Certain folks who are, say, more-in-touch-than-others. Their feelings, if they get wound up enough, can reach across time, in a way."

"What, like psychics?"

"Some of them," he conceded. "But most of them are more or less everyday sorts. Maybe more open-minded or spiritual than the average. Maybe a little mad, rootless. Rife with the muse, perhaps? Super-creative or chronically depressive or both... they're all over the place. You just never know."

"So if one of those people gets sad enough, pulls the right combination of memory and emotion out of time, it could unravel the universe? Knock all of time into the ether, never to be realised again?"

He shrugged. "If we don't stop it."

"Well, then," she said, standing up from her near-crouching position on the children's chair. "Give me an axe and show me where to bury it."

* * *

"What are we looking at?" asked Martha, back in the console room at the Doctor's side, staring at a screen full of data she didn't understand.

"That's where we bury the axe."

"And _that_ is?"

"Apollon."

She waited for more, and when none came, she said, "Thanks, that clears it right up."

"Do you see this cluster here?" he asked, pointing to a concentrated flow of Gallifreyan symbols churning on the screen.

"Yeah."

"Well, first of all, the entire screen is showing time oscillations on the planet Apollon," he explained. "Most of it is fairly standard - their planet is similar to yours, as far as frequency of time anomalies. Actually, maybe they are _a little_ more concentrated on Apollon."

"Only a little?" she asked, surprised at the number she was currently seeing, and that _that many_ occurred on Earth ever, let alone at any given time.

"Yeah, I mean... of the sort that I told you about," he said. "Well-placed memory here, an overwhelming emotion there. Apollonians have a slightly higher rate of self-aware beings that are capable of creating the time ripples, so the readings for Earth are a bit different, but not by too terribly much."

She examined him for a moment, then said, "I have no idea how to respond to that."

"But, as I was saying, that cluster... that's the Polymus Mountain Range. That's the very heart of it, in fact."

"Okay. So what's the significance of that?"

"The ruling class live there," he said. "Not the government, not the wise men, but those who unofficially run the planet. Do you see what I'm saying?"

"The rich and famous."

"Actually, they don't care to be famous - it's easier to be complete arseholes that way. They're mostly just rich. And privileged. And corrupt. Increasingly powerful. Time Lords haven't run afoul of these characters in a lot of years - well before my time - but in the old days, their power was already out of control. It looks like they've only grown."

"Yeah," Martha whispered, mostly because she had no idea what else to say.

He squinted at the screen, and tugged at his hair. He spoke to the data. "Really? I mean, no mutiny, no uprising, no planetary revolution? Not in all of this time? Well, at least not anything successful. Blimey, it's actually quite disheartening."

"So, is that where we're headed? The Polymus Mountains? The lair of the ruling class?"

"It's like a fortress," he said quietly. "It will almost certainly be secured by the highest-tech, if not supernatural, equipment. Armed guards, torture chambers, maze-like passages into which intruders venture, never to exit."

"Okay, so if we can't go in and confront them, then what do we do?"

He looked at her wide-eyed, rather nonplussed. "I never said we weren't going in."

* * *

As they hovered just outside the atmosphere of the planet Apollon, above the Polymus Mountain Range, the TARDIS was able to home in on an exact location from which the highest concentration of time anomalies radiated.

"It's in some kind of laboratory, attached to the Parangelia Compound."

Martha nodded absently, as she looked at the screen and tried to discern what he meant. "Parangelia," she seemed to say from far away.

"Parangelia is an old, old Apollonian family. Again, ruling class. Nasty pieces of work."

"So what, is there, like, a patriarch with a God complex?"

"Looks like it. Although frankly, if you ask me, the whole damn planet has a God complex. They think they can just impose order..."

Next, the Doctor plugged the sonic screwdriver into a component of the console, and explained, "I'm programming it to detect what the TARDIS has just detected."

"The messing-with-time-lab?" she asked.

"Yep," he said. "It's going to take up a lot of its memory to do it, but I can always re-insert some data later on. And... just in case the Parangelias have devices that detect alien technology, I'm going to forge a low-tech dampener for the sonic."

"How low-tech are we talking?"

"Low-tech, in that it's mostly made of lead," he explained. "Though with a component that keeps in sound as well. The signal shouldn't be able to get out beyond my person, and no-one will hear it."

"When you say the signal will not go beyond _your person_..."

"I mean, I'll have to link myself psychically with the sonic, just for a time. Here goes nothing."

At that point, he pulled something from the console, that was attached to a wire. It was a suction cup, which he pressed to his left temple, and it stuck. A moment later, he pulled another one, and attached it to his right temple, then closed his eyes, and concentrated. After about three minutes, he opened his eyes and seemed to swoon.

"Whoa," he said, pulling the suction cups loose, shaking off the haze. "That was intense."

Martha frowned at him. "Living with you is so weird."

* * *

They parked the TARDIS in an innocuous corner of a valley, and the Doctor explained they'd have to hike a few miles to the Compound, which they did in near-total silence. Martha followed behind him almost in lock-step. She was in excellent shape, but she hadn't exactly grown up in the Himalayas; hiking uphill, in dirt, with big rocks and trees in her path... this was a totally new experience for her. She was using muscles she barely knew she had, in a way that she never dreamed she would, and was terrified of falling. Concentration was paramount. On several occasions, his longer legs held the advantage, and she had to be literally hoisted onto a new tier by the arms, which she found slightly embarrassing, but to her relief, the Doctor did the job earnestly, and followed each hoist with a concerned, "All right?"

As night fell on Apollon about two-and-a-half hours later, they saw the Compound's gate, a hundred metres away, across a gentle downhill slope.

"Thank God," she breathed.

"Yeah, except, we'll never get in this way."

"What?" she whined.

"We'll have to go in through the servants' entrance."

"Where's that?"

"No idea," he sighed. "But standing here's not going to get it done."

"Okay. Lead on," she breathed tiredly.

They went round the side of the Compound, and walked along the walls.

"Aren't we on camera or something?" asked Martha, her eyes darting around nervously.

"Probably," he said. "But if we can find the servants' entrance, and actually disguise ourselves as the help, then no one will really notice."

"They won't?"

"Of course not," he shrugged. "Do you think people like this pay any attention whatsoever to the servants?"

"I suppose not."

"Even if we've been caught on footage, as long as we go in and dress ourselves and behave accordingly, we'll be fine."

"I hope you're right."

"Of course, once we start skulking about in whatever insane time lab where Patriarch Parangelia is destroying the universe, then, well, nothing is guaranteed."

"Good. Thanks for that," she chirped.

To Martha's relief, a few minutes later, some folks came out of the trees and fell into step just behind them, after a friendly hello to them. After a while, some people began coming toward them, along the wall in the opposite direction. Everyone was of an easy disposition, everyone was just having a chat, as though they'd known each other forever.

Those coming toward them stopped beneath a bright light along the Compound's wall, and as the Doctor and Martha drew nearer, they could see there was a door there. The first to arrive swiped some kind of card-key, and held the portal open for the rest. The Doctor, Martha, and the two people behind them came through the door, and found themselves inside a locker room, quite like the one in Royal Hope.

"You must be new," said the man holding the door to the Doctor. "I'm Marcum. That's Vernis, that's Argull..." He introduced them to about ten other people in the room, then welcomed them aboard.

"Thanks," the Doctor said. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Martha."

"Do you know who is training you?" asked Marcum.

"Not as of yet."

"Okay. We'll find out. Have you been assigned lockers yet?"

"Nope."

"Okay, we'll figure that out, too."

And just that easily, the Doctor and Martha Jones came into the fold of the Parangelia Compound on the planet Apollon.


	4. Chapter 4

**There's a lot of detail here... meant to show the kind of privilege the Parangelias are used to enjoying. We all know these kinds of people (or know OF them, anyway).**

 **Don't forget to review. :-)**

* * *

CHAPTER 4

"Well, I guess I'll be the one training you," Marcum said as he handed the Doctor and Martha each a short pile of clothing. He appeared, to Martha's human eye, to be roughly middle-aged; he had greying dark hair, was taller than she, but shorter than the Doctor, and wore glasses. All in all, he looked exactly like a regular, boring human being - perhaps one who sold insurance. "I'm the foreman of the Interior Maintenance Team, but sometimes the Head of the Household likes to do the training himself. He's busy tonight with the banquet, so I get the honour."

"All right, then," the Doctor said, sprightly. "What sort of banquet?"

"No idea. It's one of the grandkids. Nothing to do with us. We'll just tidy up afterwards," said the foreman. Then he clapped. "All right, well, I'll give you a bit of time to get into your uniforms. And I guess you can just put your things in the office for now, until you get issued lockers. Then we'll take the tour. There are five other new team members as well, in Interior Maintenance, so the eight of us will be on our way, say in ten minutes?"

"No problem," the Doctor said.

"Do you have paperwork to file?" asked Marcum, just as he was about to walk away.

"Erm, it's already been done," the Doctor told him, riffing, wondering if he'd have to reach for the psychic paper.

"Great. Ten minutes, then."

Marcum pointed in the direction of the changing rooms, and the undercover travellers made their way over, and climbed into their newly-issued uniforms. The men's and women's garments were just alike: white collared shirt, light grey trousers, light grey vest, light grey bow-tie. They sniggered at one another when they emerged from the changing rooms.

And then, they gathered by a heavy metal door with Marcum and five other individuals dressed in exactly the same drab, light-grey servant-wear. The foreman began speaking about the duties, philosophies and ethics involved in working in Interior Maintenance for the Parangelia Compound. Then, he led them through the door, and to the left, down a narrow cinderblock hallway.

Martha took advantage of the unguarded moment to whisper, "So do we have a plan, or am I supposed to just listen for telepathic signals from you, or something?"

Any answer he was about to give was cut short when the group went through the door at the end of the cinderblock corridor.

"Whoa, nelly," Martha exclaimed, her eyes wide as saucers taking in their surroundings.

The corridors were labyrinthine and cavernous, and made of what looked like black marble or onyx with veins of sparkly red and gold. The lighting all seemed to come from copper sconces spaced every few feet, each spouting three fountains of fire, about a foot in height. It made the whole effect rather hot, fragile and oppressive, but inescapably opulent.

"Whoa nelly is right," the Doctor mused.

"Isn't this a fire hazard?" she asked, a little more loudly than she had intended.

He looked at her with an open jaw for a moment. "Really? _That's_ what you're getting from all of this?"

"Well, no, not chiefly," she shrugged. "Just... well, one wonders."

Marcum talked, pointing out landmarks within the Compound, which he called "the house." They wound past doors, grand staircases, paintings, sculptures, grandiose hallways, rotundas, salons, indoor gardens, and just about every other type of facility imaginable.

"How many people live here, sir?" asked one of the newbies.

"The Parangelia Family is comprised of a Patriarch, of course, Araxia Parangelia, and the families of his three children. He has a son and two daughters, each of whom has a spouse. Each one of them, spouses included, has a lover living on the premises, as an Official Guest. Official Guests tend to stay for extended periods - months and years - until the family tires of them. Whatever that may mean."

Marcum stopped for a moment and turned and faced the group.

"Master Araxia has fourteen grandchildren, ranging from an infant, to one who is just now reaching age-of-maturity. You will be briefed on who everyone is later on, including their hobbies, habits, likes, dislikes, how to speak to them, etc. And that is the family... and guests. Everyone else is staff. I'd say that there are upwards of two hundred people living in the Compound at any given time. Some in the house, some on the grounds around the house."

"So, that's twenty-one family members, and six Official Guests. And more than a hundred and seventy-five servants to wait on twenty-seven people?" asked the women, who had asked the original question.

Marcum shrugged wearily. "That's Parangelia. This is the Compound. Been that way for time immemorial."

They followed the group a little further, and Martha remarked, "I swear we're walking in circles."

"No, but very nearly," the Doctor said. "We've been going in a four-leaf-clover pattern, and winding upwards as we do. Kind of like those elaborate freeway junctions in California."

"Any luck with the sonic?" she whispered, as low as she could manage.

"Yes," he said. "The lab is at the tip of the clover's stem... for frame of reference. It's one of the ways I've been able to tell the floor plan of this place. Blimey, it's weird being wired psychically into the sonic. It's like having another appendage."

"Okay," she said. "So how do we get to it?"

"I'm not sure yet," he said. "I'm waiting for a wafting signal."

"A wafting signal?"

"Yes, something that's not coming through walls," he told her. "Or, at least not too many walls. Something that's coming down corridors. Something relatively uninterrupted."

"Sorry, Doctor, do you have a question?" Marcum piped up, slightly annoyed, having heard the Time Lord and his Companion muttering to one another.

"What? Oh, no. Apologies. Just a momentary distraction. Please, carry on!"

"As I was saying..." Marcum continued.

As they passed the umpteenth staircase, a few minutes later, the Doctor grabbed hold of Martha's arm. "Oh, hello," he whispered.

"Got something?"

"Ssh," he said. Then more loudly, he said, "Martha, is my bowtie quite straight? I don't have much experience with them."

"What?"

"Will you adjust it for me?"

"Erm, okay," she said. She turned an fiddled with the grey bowtie, stopping to do so. Any members of the group who had been travelling behind them simply went around them, so as not to lose Marcum and the thread of what he was saying.

As soon as the Doctor was sure that, for a half-second, no-one was looking, he grabbed Martha's hand and dashed behind the staircase. She asked no questions; she merely followed as he ducked quickly out of sight through an innocuous archway.

"It's going to be about ten seconds before Marcum realises we're gone," he whispered.

"Right," she whispered back, hurrying along behind him. This corridor was beige marble, arched-over, narrow, and exceedingly long. It was well-lit at the beginning, but as they went deeper, the lights dimmed more and more, until there was the bare minimum illumination one would need in order to see one's own hand in the dark.

Eventually, they reached a T-junction, and the Doctor pulled her to the left.

After a few moments, behind them, they heard the scuttling of feet, and the unmistakable crackle of a radio-based communications system. "Reginol, this is Marcum," a voice said. "Two of my new-hires have wandered off. See if you can find them, would you?"

"Sure thing," another, clearer voice said. "Send me a description on the screen comm, yeah?"

They saw the shadows of people passing across what little light there was, and murmurs of coordination and agreement. The Doctor and Martha froze and held their breath.

When the footsteps died, Martha asked, "Are you _sure_ this is the right way?"

"Yes," he replied. "The sonic pulse is getting stronger - trust me. Homing in on anomalous time activity. Pretty soon, I'll be able to feel it myself, without the sonic."

He crept further on, and Martha followed.

From then on, he hallway grew more oppressive, and if possible, the dark became palpable. Thick like tar.

"Are we close?" she wondered.

"Oh yes," he told her. "I've got a Time Lord stomach ache that could kill a Tuangar Equine."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'll assume that means it's bad."

"Yeah," he said. "It's a really, really big horse."

"Does that mean you turned off the sonic?"

"Yeah, a couple minutes ago."

A bit more creeping into the dark finally led them to another T-junction. This time, it was an innocent-seeming doorway, a black rounded wall before them, and beyond, lights flashing fast and bright.

"Ugh, I'm going to be sick," the Doctor said, steadying himself on the wall.

"Seriously?"

"Maybe," he said. "Just give me a minute."

"It's that bad?"

"He's literally perverting the fabric of time. _In this room_ , Martha. I'm a Time Lord. What do you expect?" He leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees.

"Is there _anything_ I can do?"

"Just go in there with me. Be strong. Be aware. Get ready to run if we have to."

She nodded, and told herself, _business as usual._

He reached out for her hand. She took it, and helped him stand up straight. He uselessly adjusted the grey bowtie with his free hand, stuck out his chin with a bravado he didn't feel inside, and pulled her along to the left.

The space opened up, and they walked into a giant room, at least three stories high, and large enough to be a theatre. Loud _whooshing_ sounds filled their ears, along with an electrical crackle. They looked up, and on one end of the room, suspended above, there were two bluish lightning bolts, currents running between prongs that seemed to be coming right out of the wall. Every few seconds a bit of blue smoke would drift into the path of the lightning, and get zapped. Sometimes the blue smoke seemed to get shocked out of existence. Sometimes, it seemed to spin into a ball, then become part of the current. Other times, it stretched out into a string-like appearance, then became part of the lightning again.

The Doctor found that he could only look at the lightning bolts for a few seconds before a wave of nausea pulled his gaze away.

Work tables littered the room, and they could see large sheets, like butcher paper, covered with doodles and equations. All of it looked completely mad to Martha, but the Doctor squinted at one of the pages filled with numbers and lines and diagrams.

"These are the beginnings of the formula," he whispered. "He must have developed this into the system that lets in pieces of the vortex." He pointed up at the lightning, and Martha realised that the blue smoke drifting in was just that: parts of time.

He moved to the next table. "Here's his speed," he said, after examining another equation. "Here's where he worked out how fast he could do it. See this? B represents the beginning of time, U is the end."

"So what does that mean? I don't understand any of the middle."

"He's going moment-by-moment, starting at the Big Bang, channelling it through this room... good God, that's a lot of power." The Doctor closed his eyes and groaned softly, seeming to steady himself against the table. He shook it off and recovered after a few seconds. "But it's not just those moments. He's already tugging at the threads of all existence. Remember, we ran into the walls of the Vortex, and we weren't anywhere near where he's working. And yet..."

Just then, they heard a scratching noise. It was not until that moment that they noticed a man, sitting at one of the desks in the corner, furiously working over one of the equations. His pencil was scratching through something so hard that the sound made it to their ears, over the _whooshing_ , and zapping, the sounds of time being _perverted_ , as the Doctor had put it.

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and adopted a cool, matter-of-fact attitude, in spite of the environment eating away at his insides. He sauntered forward, approaching the man.

"Well now," he said loudly, still moving forward. " _Quite_ the operation you've got going in here!"

The man looked up with a start, and a gasp. "Who let you in here?" he shouted.

"Now, why would you assume that just because we're here, that someone _let us in?_ Can't two people go snooping about some bloke's palatial estate without someone accusing them of having been _let in_?"

"That idiot Marcum is fired," spat the man. " _The Help_ , getting in to my laboratory..."

"Oh, leave Marcum alone - he's a good sort. And we're not the help," the Doctor said. Something in his tone made the man stop and stare at him with cold suspicion.

"Who are you?" asked the man, getting to his feet. After a beat, he moved as quickly as he could to the wall on his left, and made to push a big yellow button, which the Doctor assumed would call for guards.

The sonic screwdriver was trapped in a lead casing in his pocket. However, his _mind_ was wired into the tool for now. And though he knew it was a huge abuse of that particular privilege, he quickly contemplated what was at stake - namely the fabric of all reality - and made a snap decision. He trained his eyes on the yellow button, concentrated, and the electrical panel behind it exploded in a small hail of sparks.

"Whoa!" Martha exclaimed, forgetting herself for a moment. " _That_ was amazing!"

"Sure, if you like searing pain," the Doctor muttered, rubbing his head.

"What trickery is this?" the man cried out, though he did not seem frightened by it - only outraged.

"Look who's talking!" the Doctor called back at him, shaking off the headache. "'Cause it looks to me like you've got some trickery of your own in this room, and it's doing a lot more than exploding some wiring. And come on! What kind of evil genius uses a panic button?"

"One must protect one's own person, and interests."

"Indeed," the Doctor said. "Indeed, indeed. Which is why I'm here: protecting my person and interests. Because you, sir, are trying to put all of time on a linear plane, and make it do your bidding, and it _kind of_ makes my intestines want to explode. But it's my job to stop you, so here I am. Well, here _we_ are. I rarely do this sort of thing solo. Have you met my friend Martha?"

"What's this? _Your job?_ " asked the man.

"That's right," the Doctor said, suddenly very grave.

"What are you, a _Time Lord_?" The man topped this off with a fairly nasty bout of maniacal laughter.

"That's right," the Doctor repeated darkly.

The man stopped laughing, as though someone had pressed his _mute_ button. "That's impossible."

"Yeah, I get that a lot. But clearly, it's possible."

The man peered over his glasses at the Doctor with an sceptical, but dire expression. "How can you be a Time Lord?"

"There was a war. I survived," the Doctor shrugged.

"No-one could have survived that war."

The Doctor waved off the comment with his hand. "Long story."

"Prove it. Prove you're a Time Lord."

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest. "I know who you are."

The man scoffed. "Everyone knows who I am."

"Right. Martha Jones, meet Araxia Parangelia," he said, turning to his Companion. "How did you put it? The Patriarch with a God complex."

"Madame," Parangelia said to her, with a smirk.

"Oh, but I know who you _really_ are," said the Doctor. "And that this is not the first time you've tried this. Or, if not you, then at least your ancestors. Other Apollonians, other Parangelias. And I think Martha - who is, by the way, _human_ , did I mention that? - would be very interested to know that history. Don't you?"

"Human, eh?" asked Parangelia, eyeing Martha with both suspicion and a tinge of mania. "Yes, I think she might."


	5. Chapter 5

**Info-dump! And it's about to get weird!**

 **The mythological conflict described in this chapter is real, as far as mythology goes. I'm not THAT well-versed in it - I didn't like Edith Hamilton's book any more than Martha did when I was in high school ;-). But, comparative religion in college was a different, fascinating kettle of fish, and for my purposes, the chaos/order contrast works very well! Though, this dichotomy is infinitely more complex than is allowed-for in the chapter. As Martha points out toward the end, it's not just about chaos - it goes deeper and wider than that.**

 **Oh, and FYI, I have not forgotten about the first chapter, in which the Doctor thinks Martha is definitely someone else... that bit of intrigue will come into play before too long!**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

CHAPTER 5

Martha turned toward the Doctor and pressed her hands against his grey vest. Her eyes held a shadow of panic. "What's happening? Is there something that you should've told me before we came in here?"

"Maybe, but... Martha, how much do you know about Greek mythology?" asked the Doctor.

"Just what I learned at university. I took a World Religions course my first year, and read that horrible Edith Hamilton book in World Literature. Why?"

"Because, Martha, in Earth's antiquity, what you would call Ancient Rome or Greece, there was a massive influx of alien activity," the Doctor explained.

"There was?" she asked, rather surprised.

He nodded.

"Perhaps you've heard of the conflict between Apollo and Dionysus," Parangelia wondered.

"Of course," she told him. "The god of order and the god of chaos. The archetypal conflict between... well, order and chaos."

"Archetypal?" asked the Patriarch with a smile. "Good to know we made an impact."

"Archetypal, yes. Symbolic," Martha said. "It's the _symbol_ of something that simply _exists_ in human nature. It's a myth. Visceral human phenomenon put to words and given a story so that we can relate to it, that's all."

"Oh, is _that_ all?" Parangelia asked smugly.

She sighed heavily, and crossed her arms. "Okay. If it's not, then why don't you just tell me?"

He smiled. "All right. As you said, Apollo and Dionysus are agents of order and chaos, respectively. At least, if I'm to understand, this is how humans see it."

"It's how _one_ sector of _one_ civilisation of humans _saw_ it, for a time. These days, it's all been relegated as myth. Helpful stories. This one is used in psychology as well as in studies of comparative spiritualities."

"Fine, fine, whatever," dismissed Parangelia. "As usual, humans are missing the point. Call it a helpful story if you want, but fact is fact: the last time the Apollonians tried to bring order to the universe, we were stopped. By _his_ kind. By the Time Lords. Agents of chaos."

Martha looked askance at the Doctor. "Seriously? Apollo and Dionysus? It's real?"

"Yep," the Doctor answered. "All of the Greek and Roman gods were real. Like I said - an influx of aliens. Humans didn't have a way of explaining where they came from and why they could do the things they could do, so the phenomenon became stories and _belief._ Logos, ethos, then mythos. Do you see? The beings seemed supernatural to them, so they became gods."

Her eyes went wide. "Somehow that makes perfect sense." Then, she frowned and began to contemplate the implications.

The Doctor nodded subtly. "Dionysus was a Time Lord. Not a very clever one, but he did his best, I suppose. Like I told you... that was before my time. I learned about it in school just like you did, but from a different perspective."

"That is _madness_ ," Martha mused with a smile. She smiled because she didn't know what else to do.

"The Apollonians were using Earth as their HQ, their base of operations," the Doctor said. "Earth was, at the time, a level-four planet. The Time Lords didn't have my, let's say, _fondness_ for Earth and the human race, but it was still illegal to do what they were doing, which was to set up a battleground on a level-four planet without the knowledge of the locals."

"Pff," Parangelia breathed with tedium. "Without their knowledge. They knew!"

"Um, no! No, they did not, Master Araxia," the Doctor protested.

"We had thousands in our camp!"

"No, you had thousands of followers of the god Apollo," the Doctor corrected. "They were adherents to a branch of faith, which was, might I add, _by design_! They just thought, _order, yeah, that sounds good!_ They had no idea they were dealing with beings from another planet, trying to turn their world, and all other worlds, into an abyss!"

"Hypocrite!" accused Parangelia. "Dionysus had just as many followers. Except they were all complete nutters!"

"No, they just didn't have sticks up their arses." The Doctor sighed. "Blimey, if only Dionysus hadn't been so bloody incompetent. We would've come off in this story a lot better than we did."

"So all of that stuff about Dionysus and the Maenads... with their Bacchanalia, the celebrations with all the naked dancing and fornicating... all of that is true?" Martha wondered.

"Yeah, pretty much," the Doctor said. "He fed them wine, from grapes which happened to grow with an hallucinogenic fungus. So, it sent them into a literal pagan frenzy _._ In fact, it kind of _defined_ the term _pagan frenzy_ for the modern world, which is... okay, it's actually kind of cool."

"A Time Lord defined the pagan frenzy," Martha sighed. "I think I just had a small stroke."

"It's nothing weird, Martha it was just the way they worshipped, celebrated chaos and indulgence. But, the Maenads weren't just women. They were of both - all - sexes. Some Time Lord scholars thought that Dionysus was trying to inspire chaos all over the planet, thereby overturning the influence of the Apollonians and their followers via energy saturation. Others think he was just... well, incompetent, and having a bit of fun. Although, I have to admit, the Time Lord jury is still hung on the subject of _my_ competence as well, so one never knows."

"We only got a few hundred years into our good work when we were foiled," Parangelia told her. "Earth was uniquely suited to the project - such an oasis of a planet it is. You have no idea how lucky you are... Martha, is it? Abundant water, greenery, and populated by idiots, waiting to be told what to do."

Martha had been told this last bit in a variety of forms during her time with the Doctor: humans are weak, humans are stupid, humans are cattle. It didn't bother her anymore.

"Well, Dionysus couldn't have been _that_ incompetent if he was able to stop you," she said.

"Dionysus didn't _really_ stop them," the Doctor interjected, uneasily. "He just slowed them down. Pissed them off royally - which was probably work worth doing, now that I think about it. He likely recruited Apollonian followers into his own cult, did the energy-saturation of chaos thing, whether he meant to or not. He made it much harder for an Apollonian takeover."

"That's something, then."

"I suppose it is," the Doctor shrugged.

"We tried to get them on our side," said Parangelia, in his own feeble defence. "Tried to subvert Dionysus himself and include his followers in our plans. We explained, they could still have celebrations even if time became linear, all they would have to do is _wait_ a bit. But they wouldn't have it. They would _not_ have order. The Dionysians - the Maenads - would not bend."

"Good for them," said the Doctor.

"Dionysus would not stand down - his cult just got bigger. So we tried to move into Alexandria," explained the Patriarch. "Bring the cult of Apollo to the Egyptians, along with whatever other Greek ethos and mythos was beginning to take root there. Spread it out, broaden our following..."

"And then along came the Christians," the Doctor said with a big smile.

"Ah!" Martha laughed. "I'll bet that put a crimp in your plans!"

"Constantine and his damned Council. What a sell-out. Absolutely no backbone whatsoever! He just went the way the wind happened to be blowing that afternoon!"

"Well, he did more than that..." the Doctor protested.

"He put forth his edict or whatever it was, and we lost the cooperation of the masses," said Parangelia, cutting across the Doctor's commentary. "So, we withdrew and vowed to regroup. Come back to Earth in a couple of millennia and start again with a new... system."

"A new religion, you mean?" asked Martha. "A new way to brainwash? Oh! Is that Scientology?"

The Doctor chuckled. "You'd think, but no."

"No! We never came back to Earth because when we began to scout it, we discovered it was being watched very closely."

"By whom?" Martha wondered.

"Who else? Our old enemies. The Time Lords."

"Really?" the Doctor asked, calmly.

"Well, really, from what we could tell, it was just _one_ Time Lord with his hooks into the pulse of the planet. We never learned who he was, but he seemed to be the opposite of Dionysus," Parangelia explained. "Well, not the opposite... just better-organized. Someone scheming, clever and _maddeningly_ successful as far as his guardianship of the Earth. Time Lords had been _re_ active to a fault, rather than _pro-_ active, but this one... he seemed to defy his people. He let himself be known, and word got out that the planet was protected. And not just us, but there were quite a few civilisations all across the cosmos who suddenly wouldn't approach Earth. Clueless though _the humans_ may themselves be, numerous hostile planets were leery of the Time Lord." He spoke with malice and bite in his voice, hissed his words at the Doctor.

"What a clever, selfless and _effective_ individual," the Doctor said, with a big smile. "I'd like to shake that bloke's hand."

Martha chuckled.

"There were exceptions, of course," Parangelia sighed. "Daleks and Sontarans, most notably, who insisted on plundering in anyhow, but they always got summarily shut-down. We could never understand their thinking. Though, we did learn from them. We were determined not to be slowed by a Time Lord, nor thwarted by a global surge of new religion, or whatever it was. Maybe even both at once. When the Apollonians came back in force..."

"Or rather, _one_ Apollonian with a bit too much power," the Doctor interjected.

"...we would _not_ be stopped."

The Doctor raised his voice, and the question almost came out in the form of disbelief. "Did you really think you could muck about with the fabric of time and _not_ attract the attention of the Time Lords?"

"The war..."

"Oh, right, the war," the Doctor sighed. "You thought we were gone."

"You are," Parangelia said with a snigger. "Or might as well be. You are one, and you are insignificant. Granted, I had no idea that anyone had survived that war, but now that I know... I'm not afraid. You can't stop me."

"Master Araxia, you just said a moment ago that _one_ Time Lord protected an entire planet from, not just yours, but numerous evil schemes that might have been perpetrated from across the cosmos."

Parangelia crossed his arms and waited.

Practically growling now, the Doctor replied, "Well, meet that Time Lord."

"Nonsense."

"Believe it. I'm the Doctor - look me up. I have kept countless forces from approaching the Earth, simply by _making myself known,_ as you put it. Armies of Daleks, the great big stubborn brick wall that is the Sontaran Empire... they cross me, and eventually, they turn and run. Trust me, if I could and did stop them, then I can and will stop you." The Doctor's jaw was steely and set just a bit askew. He was not joking now.

Parangelia seemed a bit surprised, though he tried not to show it. Instead, he laughed uneasily. "This is not the Earth. I do not require followers."

"I'm a Time Lord. This is _our_ technology you're using," the Doctor retorted, gesturing at the lightning bolts, still zapping moments of time onto an unstable plane.

Parangelia said nothing. Again, he seemed rather nonplussed.

"Didn't think I'd notice, did you?" asked the Doctor with a smirk.

"I didn't care whether you'd notice," said the Patriarch, childishly.

The Doctor smiled. "You've rigged it differently, and I didn't actually recognise it when I saw it, but yeah... eventually, I'm going to know a modified temporal-compression engine when I see one. I attended the Academy, you know."

"Recognise it you might. Stop it, you cannot."

Martha was certain she heard nervousness in the man's voice.

"Thanks for that, Yoda," the Doctor said. "Blimey, what did you do, loot the capital city at the height of the Time War?"

Parangelia said nothing.

"You did!" the Doctor mused. "So, basically, you're a parasite."

"I am nothing of the sort!"

"You stole something when people were too preoccupied to see you, then retreated into your dark little corner of existence to gnaw away at the universe. No, you're not a parasite, you're... a scavenger! Like a stray dog or a rodent!"

"I am Parangelia!"

"You're vermin!" the Doctor shouted.

"You have no right!"

"You're vermin," the Time Lord repeated more calmly. "Just think of me as rat poison."

* * *

They slipped out of the room, and the Doctor bet himself that there would be a door to the outside somewhere very near Araxia Parangelia's laboratory. The mad scientist would want a way in and out without being detected.

The Doctor was also betting that the old Patriarch wouldn't chase them, nor would he be able to call for any guards, since his panic button had been disabled. It would be a while before he could inch all the way down those long corridors to a place where he could contact security, and by then, the intruders would be gone.

He was right on both counts. They found a hidden door within the dark hallway they had used to find the lab, and went through it, walking faster-than-usual toward the perimeter gate.

"Don't you think we should shift a bit? Aren't they going to come after us?" Martha asked nervously looking behind them.

"I doubt it," he said. "Master Araxia won't be able to call for the cavalry in any kind of a hurry."

Once outside the perimeter, the Doctor wasn't any more convinced that anyone was coming for them, but he wasn't taking any chances. They still walked fast over the field and down the side of a ridge. Neither of them were wearing their own clothes nor shoes, and it was an uncomfortable hike back down the Polymus Mountains. And, to add to the fun, it was now after nightfall.

"Can you summon the TARDIS?" she asked. "If I'm going to die on some bloody adventure with you, I want it to be a spectacular. I don't want to slip on the way down a mountain and hit my head on a rock."

"The sonic is inside my mind at the moment, remember?"

"Oh yeah."

"It almost knocked me on my arse just shorting out a few circuits from afar. Summoning the TARDIS might actually melt my brain."

The trek back to the TARDIS took them twice as long as the one to the Compound. Again, they spoke very little in the four-hour span, took a few breaks, and both of them at different times thanked the luck of the cosmos that the moon was close and full that night. Martha asked about animals in the forest, possible predators to look out for. The Doctor assured her that the local faunae was small and herbivorous. She had a hunch he was lying, but she didn't press.

When they reached the foot of the mountain, it seemed as though it would be only a few minutes before the sun came up again. Both were exhausted from the physical exertion, and from _thinking_. They were daunted, and ravenous.

As they began the last flat stretch of the hike, Martha asked, "Doctor, I've been thinking about Dionysus."

"Yeah, me too."

"He doesn't just represent chaos," she said. "Sorry, I mean... until today, I thought he was a made-up entity that sprung from human tendencies, and the need to explain them."

"That's what Karl Jung thought," the Doctor shrugged. "He was a smart bloke. His theory is more or less the party line amongst humans. It makes perfect sense. I can't help but think that if there hadn't been alien intervention, the Greeks and Romans would have come up with _something_ that you could call archetypal to explain human nature."

"So I guess that he doesn't actually _represent_ anything. He _was_ the very living embodiment of certain things..."

"I suppose he was."

"And one of them was hedonism. Lust and temptation."

"Yeah. So?"

"Well, forgive me, but..." she trailed off and cleared her throat.

"What?"

"Never mind."

He stopped and faced her. "No, tell me. What?"

She stopped as well. "It's just... that doesn't sound very Time Lordy."

He raised his eyebrows, then opened his mouth to speak. But his words got caught, and did not come out. He seemed to think for a few moments, then said, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"I mean, okay," she said, beginning to walk again. They could now see the TARDIS about a half-mile away, lit up and waiting for them across a grassy knoll. "If you say that the Time Lords are, after a fashion, agents of chaos, then I believe you. If they know what things in the universe need to remain in disarray, I guess that makes sense, based on what I've seen in our travels."

"Right, okay."

"But the drunken naked dancing?"

"There's no evidence that Dionysus ever _did_ any of that," he said.

"Well, at the very least, he facilitated it."

The Doctor was quiet for a long moment, then he said, "Well, some Time Lords are not like the others. I thought you'd know that by now."

She looked up at him, and found him looking back with a wry smile. "I suppose I _should_ know that," she agreed.

"Not all of them were austere and obsessed with the rights and wrongs of the universe," he said.

"And you're the proof," she said lightly.

"I wouldn't exactly call myself a hedonist," he said. "I'm hardly an agent of lust and temptation, but I suppose on some level, now you mention it, I can relate to Dionysus."

Martha said nothing.

* * *

 **If you are reading/following this story, please don't forget to leave a review! :-D**


	6. Chapter 6

**Not the most exciting chapter in existence, but it gets our heroes ruminating on the next steps toward solving the problem.**

 **I needed a new venue for them to discuss, though, other than the console room or the TARDIS kitchen - these are my usuals. Hence, the garden! :-)**

* * *

CHAPTER 6

As a life-long Londoner with experience in cardio and strength training as prescribed at the gym, and on one disastrous peer-pressure-related occasion, in running a half-marathon...

...Martha Jones needed a huge rest after six hours of mountain hiking in inappropriate clothing, and a run-in with a fairly unreasonable, powerful, control freak.

It was the next morning when she woke, still in her Interior Maintenance uniform from the Compound. She scrunched her nose when she looked in the mirror, and climbed out of those clothes in a hurry, depositing them promptly into the bin. Briefly, she thought about the clothes she'd been wearing the night before when they had arrived at the Compound - she'd probably never see them again. It was all right for the Doctor; he had twenty-seven identical brown suits. But Martha, she had really liked her lavender tee-shirt with the anime cat that her sister had brought her from Japan.

She resolved to buy a new one as soon as they had a few minutes to spare, and Doctor could get them to Tokyo. Then she showered and dressed in her own duds, feeling like a new woman.

She looked in the usual places for the Doctor, and eventually ventured outside, rather than get lost in the labyrinth of the TARDIS (as she had on one occasion previously).

Martha found herself in a garden. She guessed that she was not on Earth, since most of the plant and flower species looked decidedly foreign to her. It had been clearly "designed" by someone - rather than occurring naturally - since there were cobbled paths winding through the florae and little string barriers meant to keep visitors from treading upon the plants.

She walked forward, and within about fifty feet, reached a left turn in the path. She followed it, and found the Doctor ahead, bent at the waist, and examining a vine of some sort.

"Hello," she said tentatively, as she got a bit closer. "Where are we?"

"Louloudi."

"Louloudi?"

"Yeah. Planet. Outer ring of the seventh galaxy from Cromenus. Look at this vine, Martha," he said, engrossed in thought, and more or less brushing past her question. "This could very well be the most efficient plant in the universe."

All over the plant, there were the most beautiful, large coral-coloured flowers. The Doctor pulled some non-flowering parts of the plant away from the wooden structure it climbed, and held it against his palm for her to examine. She noticed that the vine itself, the stems, were almost in a grid pattern. Every channel was connected to just about every other channel. From afar, it would look like a tangly mess, but upon inspection, it was actually rather elegant.

"I've never seen anything like it," Martha told him.

"It takes water and nutrients from the ground," he explained, so low, he was nearly whispering. "And then, because of the intricate system of canals, it all gets distributed evenly, and all of the flowers thrive. A big, chaotic maze of feeding tubes... water gets diverted all over the place - sideways and diagonal and up and down and through - but it ends up going and coming to where it needs to be."

"I see," she told him. And she did.

"Innit brilliant? In certain parts of this planet, this vine grows wild in jungles. It's notoriously difficult to cross even a short thicket of it. When a group of explorers comes across one, they just go around it, even if the thicket goes on for a mile. Most attempts to wade through it... well, it takes half an afternoon."

"I could see why," Martha remarked. She tried to imagine this web-like life form growing, as he'd put it, in a _thicket_ , and how impenetrable it must seem.

He dropped the vine, and dashed across the path to a different vine, climbing a pole. "But look at this one," he said. He did not touch, only pointed.

This vine had purple flowers and heart-shaped leaves, but only _one vine_ grew up from the ground and wound in a spiral at least eight feet up, to the top of the pole. The flowers at the bottom, near the ground, were the size of hockey pucks, but they decreased in size until the ones near the top were the size of Martha's pinky fingernail.

"Look at the ground around the vine," he said. She looked down, and found a three-square-foot area totally covered in the carcasses of the purple flowers. "They fall off, because there's only one channel for the water to come through. And if the flowers at the bottom need more today, then the ones above never get any. The sun is hot up there near the top - plenty of the tiny ones dry up and die before they ever get any water. It might look they're only tiny because they're new, but that's only half the story."

"They're tiny because their stem is too linear," Martha commented, seeing his point.

He nodded. "The whole plant is unstable because it has no other way for water and nutrients to travel from point A to point B," he said. "As the vine gets longer, it's less and less likely that it can survive. And what do you think happens in the jungle when explorers come across it?"

"They cut through it," she guessed.

"If they even notice it," he told her. "More likely, no-one would see it, and someone would wind up snagging it on their hat or something as they pass by, and pull the whole thing apart."

They were both silent for a few moments.

Then, the Doctor said, "Think about if you planted the two vines in the same place."

"The coral one over there would smother the purple one."

He looked up at the top of the pole and mused, "Chaos overwhelms order. It's natural. It's good. It's not entropy, it's more like... perpetual motion. Variation. Mutation and evolution. And that's amazing! Chaos feeds all life, gives momentum and force to the universe - how can Parangelia not see that, Martha?"

"I have no idea, Doctor," she whispered. After a pause, she asked, "Don't you think he has an inkling of the destruction he will cause?"

"I don't know. I sort of doubt it. For the Apollonians, at least traditionally, dogmatically speaking, it's _order at all costs._ It's likely he thinks that by bringing about a linear time-line, he can stop all chaos."

"Seriously?" she asked, sceptically, sardonically.

The Doctor shrugged. "You've met this type before. Ideological, borderline zealots with too much power who are totally convinced they're right. They're all over the universe. He might even think he can make time and events bend to his will, become controllable to him, by doing this."

"He wants to be a Time Lord," she commented with a wry smile.

"Well, who wouldn't?" he asked, with an equally wry smile. He walked contemplatively the twenty-or-so steps to the end of the soil box that held the plant with the coral flowers, and back. Upon returning, he said, "The thing he doesn't understand, Martha, is the nature of sentient beings."

"Who _does_?"

"Remember how we talked about the different things that could pluck at the string, once time becomes linear, and make it all fall to pieces?"

"Yeah."

"Some of it is about extra-sensory sentience," he said. "Beings with deeper-than-normal inner lives reaching across time with their minds and emotions... Parangelia doesn't get the fact that _that_ cannot be stopped. It's all part and parcel of the experience of _being alive_ , at least for some. For a lot of folks, actually. All of that constitutes chaos, in his book. Disorder."

"What, he's never had an emotion that drags across the vortex?" she wondered.

"Maybe not," he said. "Maybe he's just not one of those people. Or, he is, and he just doesn't know it. What we _believe_ comes from the conscious mind, Martha. Sometimes it has absolutely nothing to do with reality or the subconscious... with what we feel."

"Okay, so is he being totally irrational, or hyper-rational?"

"He's almost operating outside of all rationale," the Doctor replied, staring off into space. "I think we'd find that if we investigated his motivations, his logic would be circular. He wants what he wants, and he has the means to get it. He can, and so he will. He doesn't have _reasons._ "

"All right then," Martha said, with finality. "How much time do we have before everything we've ever known is balancing on a tightwire stretched over oblivion?"

"Very nicely put!" he commented with a smile. "It's around fourteen billion years from the inception of the cosmos until now. Fourteen billion years of _moments_. But the manipulation process will not take anywhere near that long. Trouble is, I don't know how far he's got at this stage, and... " He sighed.

"What?"

He buried one hand in his hair, and spoke with worry in his voice. "When I was looking over his equations, I saw the beginnings of a formula that would accelerate the process exponentially."

"Oh. Fantastic."

"It didn't look like he'd noticed it yet," he continued. "Or at least, he couldn't work out how to balance the equation. It seemed like he was on the verge of discovering it, when he got lost on a tangent, and found another way to calculate, arriving at the rate he was using when we were in his lab. But it might be just a matter of time before he works it out."

"Okay, so we get into crash positions. We assume the worst: that he's done it. He's got smart somehow and balanced the equation and learned how to speed this thing up. In that case, how much time do you think we have?"

"Worst case scenario... a few days."

"Well, we'd better get a shift on, then."

"Yeah."

"What's the first step?"

"That depends on our strategy. If we go the Dionysian route, we'd try to bring about as much chaos in the area immediately surrounding the base of operations. We know it works, after a fashion."

"Doctor, we don't have time to start a religion," she chuckled.

"Hold that thought. If we go the sciencey route, I might be able to rig something in the TARDIS to systematically unravel what he's done," the Doctor explained, again, fixing his eyes on the horizon. "Like fraying a rope... making the threads go all over the place, the way they started."

"How soon can you do that?"

"Not sure."

After a long pause, Martha asked, "Doctor, can Parangelia be reasoned with?"

"I suppose we should find out," he conceded.

"I mean, we could have tried harder when we spoke to him."

"Very true."

"What would he need? To know that he's effectively destroying the universe? Including himself and his children and grandchildren? Could we make him understand that?"

"Maybe," the Doctor said. "We're making the assumption that he has a rational side at all. Remember, he may be functioning outside of rationality."

"But before we start bending time, or starting some cult of Doctor-worship..."

"...we should probably try talking to him."

She nodded. "Maybe we could put together a Powerpoint or something. You know, to really drive it home."

* * *

They retired to the TARDIS' mathematics tank for the sole purpose of using the four giant walls covered with dry-erase marker boards, and making sketches of timelines and spatial relationships. They were strategising. And after doing so, they came to the conclusion that a combination of the three tactics would be their best bet.

"Okay, so first, we drum up some chaos as a kind of place-holder," Martha said. "Right?"

"Right. It should slow down the process and buy us a bit of time, until we can, A) somehow manage to talk Parangelia out of this stupidity..."

"...and/or B) rig the TARDIS to unravel the linear work that Parangelia's done already."

"We have to give him a chance to back off before we start mucking about with the fabric of reality."

"What do we do with _him_ if it comes to that?" Martha wondered.

"Turn him over to the Shadow Proclamation, alert them to the Apollonian threat, I guess," he shrugged. "Assuming there is an Apollonian threat... there very well may not be. To be honest, I hadn't really thought that far ahead."

"Okay, first things first," Martha said, clapping. "Chaos. Do you know any Maenads with nothing to do this afternoon?"

"I might," he said.

"Are you going to pluck them out of Ancient Greece?"

"No, I'm pretty sure that would cause a paradox of some sort... have them involved in the same conflict, thousands of years apart... something they helped set in motion... then again, they wouldn't blink at being transported to a different planet. They might not even notice." He paused and thought about it for a moment, then shuddered. "No, definitely not. Too risky. Too creepy. But I know some similar types who would be all-too-happy to foil Parangelia. "

"Great!"

He sighed heavily. "And I know of a way to make it work better than Dionysus himself ever dreamed. Though if he'd been a bit cleverer, I suppose he could have thought of it himself."

"What is it?"

"Well, let's just say, it's going to hurt."

* * *

 **Please don't forget to leave some feedback... let me know what you think!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Well, here's something I say in my author's notes A LOT, a phenomenon I've noticed taking shape in just about every story I've written:**

 **In the course of writing this chapter, and the next, it's become clear that the story is going in a _completely_ different direction than I had originally thought it would! Actually, it's not _ultimately_ going in a different direction, it's just taking a serious B-road to get to its destination! I'm hoping that in the end you won't see all the pseudo-pagan weirdness as nothing more than some self-indulgent tangent... it does all fit together! I just hope I am successful in showing that.**

 **In any case, please enjoy... and anticipate!**

* * *

CHAPTER 7

"Where are we?" Martha asked, looking about at an ordinary-looking forest.

"Empeiría," the Doctor told her. "If there were ever another planet, another people, who could maybe take down the Apollonian obsession with order, in the absence of Time Lords..."

"So why haven't they?"

He shrugged. "Well, you know how it is. They love their pleasure sports. The place is in a state of disarray all the time. There's only rudimentary government, all of it localised, usually based on who's tallest, or who will step forward first. Laws are formed on a need-to-wield basis. Basically, everyone just does their own thing, and it works."

"It does?"

"They're an intelligent enough lot," he told her. "Their brand of chaos is different from that of the Time Lords, is all. And as you see, raging against the Apollonians requires some organisation, and they lack the wherewithal."

"I see."

They were standing in a thick patch of thin trees, that rose up high into the Empeirían sky. There was barely enough uninterrupted ground surface for the TARDIS to land without being impaled.

While Martha was looking absently upwards at the cathedral of reaching branches, he took her hand and began to walk. She was glad that the Doctor had encouraged her to grab her jacket on the way out the door, as the air was moist and cold.

"I think..." he said.

After a few moments of silence, she asked, "Therefore you are?"

"That too," he muttered, looking about. Again, a few moments of silence ensued, his eyes darted from one direction to the next, and he said, "We have to be close. We're in the Forest of Chténes for sure... they can't be far away. It's not like they've got indoor responsibilities keeping them out of the forest."

"Who?"

They walked forward another hundred metres or so, and came to a clearing at a downhill slope. Almost on cue, they heard chanting. _"Polemistés érchontai... polemistés érchontai..."_

Three hundred and sixty degrees around them, people approached - uphill in front of them, downhill behind. All of them appeared to be female, all of them dressed in a dirt-coloured cloak of some sort. Their eyes were fixed on the Doctor and/or Martha, and they closed the circle around them.

As they came closer, the words of the chant, to Martha's ear, began to morph into English. "Warriors come... warriors come..."

Martha looked askance at the Doctor. He said, "They heard the TARDIS. They can sense that we're fighting against something."

"Well, we appear to be surrounded," she said nervously, squeezing his hand a bit tighter.

"It's all right," he said. "Remember, they're way too flaky to want to hurt anyone."

When the circle closed in as tightly as it could without any of the women standing in front of one another, they stopped moving forward. Martha estimated that there were about fifty of them, still staring into the centre of the circle at the off-worlders.

A voice piped up, and the Doctor and Martha whirled around to face it. One of the women was stepping forward. "Did I hear the sound of..." she thought about it. "...pieces of the universe, ripping through the heart of a sentient travelling machine?"

"She's good," Martha muttered.

"Not _that_ good," the Doctor muttered back.

The woman stopped within conversational distance of the visitors. She smirked. "Doctor?"

"Mitéra," he said, with an equal smirk. "You haven't changed a bit."

"I cannot say the same of you," she replied, unabashedly looking him over. "What a _fortunate_ state of affairs."

Mitéra was thin, and quite naturally beautiful, as though everything about her _belonged_ in this forest. If she were human, Martha would guess her to be about forty, maybe even a well-rendered forty-five. She had big, loose ringlets surrounding her head ranging from light brown to blonde. Her eyes were an almost translucent greyish-blue, and crinkled at the corners when she smiled.

The Doctor nodded at Mitéra's assertion, and said, "Yeah, sorry about that. Life of a Time Lord. There are... variables."

"Don't be sorry," said Mitéra, again, looking him over. This time, her periwinkle eyes drank him in like a fine wine, and she sucked air subtly through slightly pursed lips. "What is life without _variables?_ "

This woman's demeanour did nothing to incur the good graces of Martha Jones, and almost in recoil, Martha let go of the Doctor's hand. She swallowed a great gob of catty ire that bubbled up just then, and forced herself to remember where they were, and why they were there. In the great struggle, they were on the side of chaos, of Dionysus: abandon and lust. And if she was reading the situation correctly, she reckoned that this woman, Mitéra, was even more the living embodiment of these elements than was the Doctor.

"Indeed, indeed," the Doctor said, smiling whimsically. "What _is_ life without variables, eh? That's sort of why we're here."

"Oh?" asked Mitéra, managing not to flirt, if only for one syllable. Her curiosity seemed genuinely piqued.

The Doctor took a few minutes to explain the conflict they now faced: Araxia Parangelia using stolen Time Lord technology, and his own maniacal wit, to possibly destroy the universe as they knew it, all in the name of order. Mitéra was well familiar with Apollon and even with the Parangelia family, in its near-infinite wealth and obnoxiousness.

He then explained to Martha that Mitéra was the leader of one faction of the Coven of Chténes, who had taken it upon themselves to protect the Forest of Chténes from virtually anything that would seek to alter it, both off-world threats and those originating from their own planet (most of which would be inadvertent), and they did this through ritual. They connected their bodies and minds with the soul of the planet, through ecstatic movements and mind-alteration, and a judicious, but gluttonous, combination of the two. In short: total inhibition, which was at the heart of the planet's ethos, if they had an ethos.

He turned back to Mitéra and recounted the ancient battle that took place in Earth's antiquity, now relegated to mythology, and how the Dionysian followers managed to more or less derail the first Apollonian attempt at bringing "order" to the universe.

"Do you mean, the Maenads?" asked Mitéra, the flirtatious light having flickered back into her eyes.

"Yep," the Doctor confirmed. "The wide spread of their, shall we say, _way of life_ caused the whole process to slow down to the point where the Apollonians decided to retreat and regroup."

"Mm, I like where this is going," sang the silkily playful woman.

Martha decided to chime in. "As I understand it, it won't _stop_ Parangelia, but it will hinder him, and buy us time. I'm Martha, by the way, since you never asked."

Mitéra gave her a warm smile. "Forgive me, Martha, it's very nice to meet you, and to see you with the Doctor," she said, reaching out to place one hand on Martha's shoulder. Over the next few seconds, she stepped forward and curled her other arm round Martha's upper arms. "I was so taken with the very welcome sight of your friend, here, I forgot my Sentimental Ethics, and neglected you. The Doctor has been a godsend to us on more than one occasion... we were beginning to think we'd never see him again."

"Sorry, I'll try and phone more often," the Doctor said off-handedly. "Anyway... what do you say? A Bacchanalia on Apollon, in the mountains near the Parangelia compound?"

Mitéra stepped away from Martha, and looked at both of them with a wicked smile. "The idea feels forbidden," she lilted. "Delicious."

"That's what I thought you'd say," the Doctor said with a delighted smile of his own.

Mitéra opened her arms wide and walked in a circle around Martha and the Doctor. "Women, what say you?"

There was some agreement and some dissent. Voices rose and fell, none of them saying anything intelligible, except "organisation," and "chaos."

"Our unwritten oath is to protect the Forest of Chténes from destroyers," she reminded them. "What are the chances of the Forest's survival if Araxia Parangelia succeeds in destroying the universe?"

At that, any dissent turned to accord, and the women began to gather as a cluster and close in round the middle.

* * *

Martha and the Doctor spent about an hour in a nearby tent with Mitéra while she lit a ritual fire with certain woods and herbs, chanted into the smoke and vented the structure's roof, so as to send a message to the rest of the Coven. Factions of the group were scattered all over the forest, and Mitéra estimated that perhaps two hundred and fifty, maybe three hundred, members could be reached. She explained her actions as she went; this combination of scents in the fire's emanations would alert the Coven to the fact that the entire forest was in grave danger, and her words upon the air would let them know that the matter was urgent, and they should gather here immediately.

Within another hour, all three hundred women, all dressed in the same dirt-coloured robes, had gathered near where Martha and the Doctor had first met up with Mitéra and her faction. It was decided amongst the faction leaders that two groups would stay behind, lest something terrible befall the Forest at home in their absence. The rest marched into the TARDIS and within minutes, were exiting on a different planet, where somewhere, a mad genius was bent on bringing an impossible linear continuum to time and space.

Instinctively, most of the women felt uneasy upon arrival - an actual unrest and oppression in their guts. It was perhaps much like what the Doctor had felt as he neared Parangelia's lab; perversion of the natural order. A few of them, at first, refused to leave the TARDIS. The Doctor, Martha, Mitéra and a few others were able to coax them out, and from there, the Coven brought about the organisation which they normally railed against.

* * *

Martha watched, leaning against the TARDIS, as the women spread out and ceremoniously lit their bonfires. A dozen or so individuals would gather round one fire, so there were fifteen or twenty fires to accommodate all two hundred women. They began by standing in circles, holding hands, breathing in the flames' fumes. Given the vines and spices that had been added to the pyre, Martha had a feeling that this would prove to be the tipping point into the true Bacchanal behaviour. For the Maenads on Earth, it had been the hallucinogenic wine. For these ladies, it was something in the smoke.

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS with Mitéra, after the latter had briefed the former on the basic conventions of the ritual.

Martha was surprised. "What are you wearing?" she asked. Although, really, it was a rhetorical question. She could see plainly that he had donned one of the dirt-coloured cloaks that the women wore.

He took a deep breath. "Well, remember when I said that I thought of a way to make the Dionysian ritual more effective than Dionysus ever dreamed..."

"...and that it was going to hurt? Yeah, I remember." Her tone was cautious and suspicious.

He spread his arms out wide, and looked down at the garment, as if to say, _well, look at me._

"Doctor, what are you going to do?"

"Ordinarily, Martha, how do you suppose I might amplify energy?" he asked. "You've seen me do it a hundred times."

"Using the sonic screwdriver," she answered immediately. Then she paused as realisation set in, and she groaned, "Ohhh!"

"Yeah. The sonic is still interfaced with my mind at the moment," he said. "I _could_ disconnect from it, and rig a transmitter to do the amplification and hook up the sonic, but it would be loads more powerful if I _participate_ in the... chaos-building and use myself as a transmitter!"

Martha's eyes were wide. "You are right, Doctor. That's going to hurt a hell of a lot. You got a migraine from shorting out Parangelia's panic button. You said you didn't want to summon the TARDIS because..."

"Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, Martha," he reasoned. "Think about it. If my consciousness can become part of the chaotic, numinous energy the Coven creates - which is _all about_ collective consciousness anyway - and then amplify it _from the inside_ , rather than from the outside... Do you remember that film _Armageddon_? A group of guys go into space to blow up an asteroid that's hurtling toward the Earth?"

"Unfortunately."

"One of the scientists in the film explains how if you put the explosives _on_ the asteroid, it might blow a crater. But if you put the explosives _inside_ the asteroid, then... kaboom. Asteroid confetti."

"Okay."

"Same principle. I'm going to drill into the chaos myself, then detonate it from the interior! Give it more force and make it rain!"

"What will happen to you?" she asked, brow furrowed with concern.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "It most likely will knock me out cold for a while."

"So, you'll pass out from the pain," she surmised with a curt annoyance. "Will there be any lasting damage?"

He smiled. "Dr. Jones, I just don't know. I doubt it."

"You're risking your mind - _your brain_ \- on 'I don't know, I doubt it'?"

"Can you think of a better way?"

Martha thought about it for a moment. "Let me do it."

"What?"

"Wire me into the sonic, and let me do it," she said. "I'll need a tutorial on how exactly to do the point-and-shoot part, since there won't be any buttons to press..."

"No, Martha."

"...and it would free you up to work on how to rig the TARDIS to unravel the damage that Parangelia's done."

"Martha, no."

"We're doing this so we can buy time," she argued. "We might as well not waste time, and maximise our resources. Use me!"

"No!" he said firmly. "Your brain would burn up! Or very nearly, anyway. I don't know if I could fix you."

"And yours won't?"

"Mine isn't completely..."

"The fact is, you don't seem to know _what_ will happen to your brain, Doctor," she shouted over him. "And if you become a vegetable, I'm clever, but not _that_ clever. I would have no idea how to perform brain surgery on a Time Lord. But if I become a vegetable, you'll have a fighting chance of bringing me back. And anyway, the universe can more easily do without my brain in working order than yours."

The Doctor rolled his eyes, then spoke very quickly. "Look, it's Time Lord technology, that hurts even a Time Lord. If a human tried, it... I shudder to think. I'm not talking about this anymore. You know what you said about not wasting time? And this conversation? Huge waste of time."

With that, he began walking, swiftly and with purpose, toward the clusters of women and their fires, and Mitéra followed.

She let out a grunt of frustration as she chased after them. She caught up with Mitéra, and said, "Was he like this last time you saw him?"

"Altruistic to the point of being quasi-suicidal? Dismissive? Grandiose? Bloody stubborn?" Mitéra asked.

"I can hear you, you know," the Doctor called over his shoulder. "I'm old, but I'm not deaf."

"And also presumptuous and pig-headed?" Mitéra continued. "I'd say... yes. He's always been that way."

"Sorry, just trying to save the universe," he growled.

"But he's also probably right, Martha," Mitéra counselled.

"Yeah, he usually is," Martha sighed. "It's infuriating."

"At last," the Doctor shouted with mock relief.

"Doctor, at least let me help," Martha pleaded. "I can't just watch!"

"Join in the ritual if you want to," he said. "The more the merrier, right Mitéra?"

"Well, actually, Doctor," Mitéra said contemplatively. "I'm thinking... how long have the two of you travelled together?"

"I dunno," he shrugged. "A month or two, why?"

"Eight months," Martha corrected.

"Got into some scrapes together," Mitéra continued. "Saved each others' lives a few times? Had a few near-misses? Intense moments?"

"Of course," he said. "It's kind of what we do. It's my life."

"So the two of you probably have a formidable connection," Mitéra speculated. "A bond of trust, kinship, shared experiences."

He stopped and rounded on Mitéra. "Yes. Why?" He was earnest, interested.

"Use that connection, Doctor," the faction leader said, looking him in the eye, though managing to maintain seriousness, rather than her default playfulness. "She might not be able to detonate energy using a telepathic sonic connection or what-have-you, but she can conduct energy to you and through you better than any of us can, and I think you'll find that her particular energy is... well, exactly what you need."

Martha blushed. She had an idea of what Mitéra meant, and her tone made Martha very uncomfortable.

The Doctor looked Martha dead in the eye, and she looked back. He seemed to search her. "I think you might be right," he said, without moving his lips. He was speaking to Mitéra, but never took his eyes away from Martha.

Mitéra reduced her voice to a whisper. "There's something unresolved there, don't you agree, Doctor? There is an energy that is not quite whole. Something specific that is uncertain and remains a mystery. Something nervous, sparking and frayed that chafes at her, and at you, every moment that you are together."

The Doctor nodded, and Martha could see revelation in his eyes. She had no idea how she managed to hold his gaze, because as she did, she felt exposed and naked. _Chaos_ was the word of the day. _Chaotic energy_ was what was needed here.

Mitéra, a truly perceptive woman, was putting her finger on the most tumultuous aspect of Martha's inner life.

 _Love_ was a kind of energy, but her love was indeed chaotic - anything but orderly. _Not quite whole_ , she had said. _Uncertain, nervous._ The circuit was incomplete. It was _sparking, frayed... chafing_ at the both of them every moment they spent together.

"Yes," the Doctor whispered. And then he snapped out of his reverie, and shouted, "Yes! Brilliant! Let's do it! Martha, stay close to me. Become part of the collective consciousness, but try and concentrate on me, if you can. I can use all of that schrapnel to rattle Parangelia's cage! Ha!"

At that, the Doctor went bounding away, leaving Martha and Mitéra to look after him with puzzlement.

"He's avoiding," Mitéra said, once again putting one arm around Martha's shoulders. "Give him time."

* * *

 **Well, kids, seeds are being planted, alas. I couldn't keep away from this aspect of their relationship, even though I thought I could.**

 **Please review... reviews are love! :-D**


	8. Chapter 8

**The ritual. Again, I say: this is going in a direction I had not intended! :-) But I like it - it's very me. Hope you enjoy it as well.**

* * *

CHAPTER 8

Their hands and feet created a rhythm, their voices formed a bubble of sound sensation that would soon be reverberating through every soul, every vessel of energy, nearby. As they thrummed and hummed, the members of the Coven stood still in their circle for the time being, preparing an incubator for the chaos that was about to come forth from their bodies and minds.

Martha looked around. She could see the appeal; the fire was mesmerising and the scent of the special spices wafting through the Apollonian air was delightful, intoxicating. But she had no idea of her role in all of this. Sure, aim her fragmented sentiments (more than usual) at and through the Doctor so that he could amplify her unrequited love along with all the other brands of chaos he was to absorb... but how?

"What do I do?" Martha asked, dressed in a dirt-coloured robe and nothing else, just like everyone else in the vicinity. She felt, for the moment, cold.

"Just move," the Doctor said, taking her hand. They stood inside one of the circles formed by the Coven of Chténes, waiting for some kind of cue. "It works best if you move _around_ the fire, but you should do what comes naturally."

"Do I dance? Skip? Jog?" Her voice wavered with nervousness.

"Whatever you like. Let the fire and the chant and... _everything_ take you," he said. Then, after a pause, he said, "If you're self-conscious or asking questions, it won't work. Come on. Let's try it together."

He took her other hand as well, and moved backwards, tugging her along. He smiled a bit, and encouraged her with his eyes.

She focused on them, and moved forward as he pulled.

They circled the fire this way, at a walk. She felt a little silly, but his eyes were undoubtedly pulling her in. The movement, the absorption, got easier and easier, she found. And then, their footsteps fell into beat with the Coven's feet, hands and voices.

After the third or fourth time around, she began to feel dizzy. Her body moving in circles with her eyes never moving away from the Doctor's and vice versa, no chance to adjust to the turning, rotating... she closed her eyes and threw her head back as a bit of vertigo touched her.

"That's good," said the Doctor, though his voice seemed far away. "Lose yourself."

She inhaled heartily and found her head spinning even more with whatever was in the smoke. She felt like she could fly. She let go of the Doctor's hands, totally unaware that she had done so, and she flew.

She soared above the mountains and trees, marvelling at how difficult it had once been to navigate these woods. So exhausted had she been after hiking to and from the Parangelia Compound... but it was nothing! This forest was hers... it would have bent to her, had she only asked. It would have brought the TARDIS to them, or allowed her to surf across the treetops! Why hadn't she thought of this?

An intoxicating peace. She smiled and sang, her voice disappearing inside the bubble of chant.

She moved round the circle with her arms outstretched, alternately running, skipping and dancing, deftly avoiding the fire and all the other participants moving around her. The Coven had joined in shortly after she had begun to circle with the Doctor, but she hadn't noticed. And now, even the Doctor had lost most of his conscious faculties, and was experiencing his own fantastical journey, conducting him forward, round the fire.

A buzzing began in the air, and a faint blue light began to radiate from their circle, and cover the area around them, all twenty-or-so ritual bonfires. For the moment, it was pale, almost white, barely noticeable... but Martha noticed. And even in her mystic stupor, she recognised the buzz.

"Doctor," she sighed.

The sound was that of the sonic screwdriver. But in this altered state, the sonic, the Doctor, the TARDIS... they were all one. The part of her that was _sparking and frayed_ was awakened, and it pulled her a little bit out of that rounded bliss... just enough to recognise form and function. Most of her was very much entrenched in the collective consciousness, but the part of her where the Doctor lived... it _chafed_ at her. Like always. She was aware...

...and the buzzing energised her, and reminded her of why she was there. She was here to help the Doctor. Because she had become his Companion. Because she had agreed to run away with him. Because she fancied him. Because he was adventurous and _scary_ clever, and aloof. Because he didn't notice her much, at least not as a sex object. Because his mind was elsewhere. Because he was ancient and had better things to think about. Because he was alone in the universe, the last of his kind, and therefore, needed a Companion. And so, she was there to help the Doctor...

She looked at all the other bird-like creatures flying about the fire, and spotted him on the opposite side. He was the tallest amongst them, the only one with the masculine aspect. He stumbled, looked as though he wanted to fall. She noticed the pale blue light growing a bit less pale, and the buzz growing slightly louder - amplification mounting. She knew she needed to give him a boost, a taste of that storm that lived inside her! And she knew how now! She could see it! A revelation had come to her all at once, perhaps careening at her from the past, perhaps through the Doctor's memory. Were his thoughts now splattering across the sky for all to see and feel?

She sped up her movements and caught up to him, panting, calling out his name multiple times. Swimming in an elated syrup, without inhibitions, in touch with her deepest inner self and what it needed and wanted, and yet still conscious of the task at-hand, and of the torn piece of her inner self, of course she would gravitate toward him...

...but him being him, she had to chase him. She had to call out. She had to feel desperate first, before she could find any kind of satisfaction. She had to... she had to...

She caught his robe in both hands and managed to whirl him around to face her. She leapt at him, grabbing his jowls and ears roughly and forcing his head down toward her, smashing his lips against hers. Instinctively, he seized her round the waist with both hands, steadying himself, but he did not pull away. She thrust her tongue against his lips, and he let it in, and met it with gusto. She jumped up, and he hoisted her by her waist. She wrapped her legs around all of him, and he wrapped his arms around all of her, and they fell into a fog of want, finding its ends.

Flying with the Doctor, in a way they had never flown before. No ship, no time, no space, in fact... just being. And she could feel him feeling her. Everything she needed to give, she was giving. The transfer of chaos was happening!

His arms, his lips, his warmth, his strength, his voice...

And it was glorious.

But then, the blue light dimmed a bit, and went back to the original bluish-white, and the buzz grew pale again. The amplification of energies had diminished back to its original level. This didn't make sense! Martha could feel her restless passion alive and well, and she knew he could feel it too, she knew it was flowing into him...

It was too good. He liked it! He was holding her, receiving her, letting her have her way... the wires were not sparking because he was completing the circuit. He was giving back. He had to engage in the kiss, in order to transfer the energy from her properly, but it rendered her disorderly sentiments of love temporarily orderly.

Well, this was one hell of a Catch-22.

And so, in what felt like a Herculean show of strength, she forced in new thoughts, like square pegs into round holes. No matter how badly she wanted to drown in this moment, this was not why he had included her in the ritual.

 _No, Martha,_ she told herself. _He doesn't love you. Maybe he's lost in the moment, but more likely it's an intellectual pursuit. It's the hospital on the moon all over again. Parangelia is the Judoon, and your silly, adolescent, moony-eyed, unrequited love-slash-lust is the material needed for "transfer". It's no different._

 _So, the Coven is drumming up its own brand of ecstatic insanity for him to amplify, and you, Martha, have a different kind of agitation to bring to the party. That's all you are, it's all you have, according to him: an ingredient for the chaos stew. It's really the only thing you can give, so give it your all. Know that he'd rather be with someone else. Remember that he's never shown the slightest indication that he even finds you attractive! Remember how many times he's hurt you. Think of how you'll feel later when you ruminate over this kiss (and you know you will): aroused, but dejected. Used. Friend-zoned. It's going to be horrible - are you ready to bear that burden?_

 _Of course not._

The buzz was now deafening, and the light was now an exciting shade of electric blue. It enveloped them, filled the air. Her angst had been enough. All that jealousy and rejection, resentment and fear of the unknown... all that red-hot, untouchable _love_.

As part of the collective consciousness, Martha could feel the chaos of two-hundred wonderfully unruly women dispersing through the atmosphere of Apollon. She could feel order and all things linear slowing down.

No wonder the "Apollo" of antiquity could not accomplish anything with the Maenads about!

And then she felt the hard, cold dirt slam against her back. She was on the ground. She had been off her feet, held up and locked in another utilitarian kiss with the Doctor, and suddenly she was not. He must have dropped her.

The impact caused awareness to break the surface of _her._ She looked around. The Doctor was on the ground as well. He was on his hands and knees, his eyes were bloodshot, and boring holes through her.

"Doctor! What's wrong?" she asked frantically, getting to her knees, laying hands on his back and shoulders, pulling, trying to help him... do what?

"Martha, I'm sorry," he breathed.

The Coven was still moving around them, the blue glow still alive in the sky. She looked up at it. Her head began to throb, but it didn't bother her just yet...

She turned her attention back to the Doctor. "Sorry for what?"

"Energy transfer works both ways," he said. "I couldn't stop it. If I wanted it to work, I couldn't stop it..."

"Stop what?"

"You gave me what I needed," he told her. "Somehow. From somewhere. How?"

"How what? What are you on about?"

"You gave me... turmoil. Something concentrated. But I gave you..." His sentence was cut off by his own crackling cry. He fell to one side, clutching his head.

"You gave me what?"

"I'm sorry! I'm trying to stay conscious, Martha," he panted. "It's abating. The longer I can stay conscious, the less you'll have to..."

"Doctor, finish a sentence! Please!"

"I'm failing! I'm going to pass out! Martha, I'm... oh, God!"

"I don't understand, Doctor! Please tell me what's going on!" she begged. He was on his back now, and she was pressing her hands against his chest in desperation.

"It's the... it's the..." he began, but he couldn't complete the thought. "Once I'm unconscious, it will pass to you."

His eyes slid closed, and she pounded against his ribs. "Doctor! No! Stay with me! What will pass to me?" But already, she was starting to see, because the throbbing in her head began to demand attention.

"Don't worry," he slurred. "It's going to be okay. It's already fading because I am. It will diminish even further, now that it's... it will..."

And with that, his head lulled to one side, and he was out.

The building headache became abruptly unbearable, and she wondered if she too would now pass out from the pain. It was her turn to clutch her head and cry out. She curled up on her side in the dirt beside the Doctor, and tears flowed as the blue glow and the sonic buzz remained active through her.

But the Doctor had been right. Almost immediately, the pain, and the glow, began to abate, little by little. She could see that they only had a few minutes left before the ritual just became a ritual, and the sonic boost became no more. As it stood, the Coven were lost to themselves, not stopping to check on Martha and the Doctor, not breaking concentration in any way.

She did not try to fight the pain. And Martha willed them to continue their Bacchanalia, to take advantage of whatever reverberation they had left, as her headache spiraled down, and under control.

* * *

 **It's a lot of emotion to go through, just for a bit of disorder. ;-)**

 **Don't forget to leave a review!**


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

Awareness came before sight. He was cognizant of throbbing in his head and of pain in his back before the shape of the TARDIS' domed ceiling came into view. It bubbled and shimmied before finally settling into focus, and he realised he was lying on the floor of the console room. He braced his hands on the floor and felt the metal press into his palms as he sat up.

Lying on the floor perpendicular to him was Martha. She was still unconscious, and like him, she was still wearing the dirt-coloured cloak. He knew it was a risk, given that he was just waking from an overload by sonic amplification, but in the absence of a normally-functioning sonic screwdriver, he planned to press his hands to her temples to find out if any damage had been done, or whether she was simply sleeping it off. It could cause more pain and unconsciousness for him, but he _had_ to know.

He gathered himself, and got to a crouch, and leaned forward to touch her.

"She's fine," a voice said from behind him. "Don't do yourself any more damage."

It gave him a start. He turned, and found Mitéra, leaning against one of the rails that surrounded the console.

"Sorry," she said. "Didn't mean to startle you. After the ladies dragged you in here, someone had to sit and make sure you eventually came to."

"How can you be sure she's fine?" he asked with a scowl.

"Because you sustained a hundred times more reverberation than she did, and you're awake."

"She's human. I can stand a lot more reverb than she can."

"She actually stood up and spoke to us first, and then passed out. The pressure had ebbed."

"That's even worse!" the Doctor protested.

"Fine," sighed Mitéra. "I _can't_ be sure. Just give her a few minutes before you start blowing up your brain again. If she's not awake in five minutes, you can probe all you like. And then, you really might want to disengage that sonic device from your mind. It's going to become a liability."

"Yeah, I'll get on it," he exhaled roughly as he made his way across the grated floor to be seated next to Mitéra.

They were silent for a few moments, while they both watched Martha sleeping, and willed her to wake up. And then, Mitéra wanted to know, "Who is she, Doctor?"

He sighed big. "Martha Jones. Other than that, I don't really know." Then he frowned, remembering how he'd felt when he first saw her.

Mitéra leaned so as to study his face. "Well, where did you find her?"

"Where did I _find her_?" he asked. "What, like, in what shop, on what shelf?"

"Okay, tetchy. How did you _meet her_?"

He stared for a moment, unseeing. "She's a medical student. I checked into the hospital because of some plasma coil activity I'd picked up. She helped. She was quick and brilliant and... " He sighed again.

"And you just decided to bring her along because you needed someone quick and brilliant?" The twinkle in Mitéra's eyes suggested that she suspected there was more to the story.

"No," he said, deciding to ignore the twinkle. "She saved my life. I wanted to say thanks."

"And the best way to say thanks is to show someone your inner sanctum? Trust them with knowledge of the universe?" Mitéra was gesturing toward the console.

"No," he repeated. "The only thing I have to offer anyone is adventure. So I gave her that."

"Please, Doctor," she chuckled. "That is not the only thing you have to offer. Especially in her eyes."

He smiled wearily. This had, of course, crossed his mind a time or two since travelling with Martha, but it was all too complicated. "Thanks, but... it really is all I have. I possess literally nothing, except this ship. It goes places, and does cool things. Everything else I've ever had is gone."

"If you say so," Mitéra sighed with resignation.

"And even this, even that sense of adventure..."

"What? What do you mean _even this?_ "

"Martha is... well, rather worldly. When I met her, she'd been all over the place already. All over her own planet, that is. She had visited five of the seven continents on Earth - do you know how few humans can say that? She's well-educated, of course. She speaks four human languages, her parents are intellectuals..."

"So you _do_ know who she is."

For the first time, the Doctor turned his head to look at Mitéra. He squinted. "No, I still don't."

"How is that possible?"

He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Mitéra, what she did out there, at the end, the thing that put out her lights... that was extraordinary. How could a mere human maintain that sonic connection as long as she did?"

"You were conscious for most of it. At least that's what I was told - I wasn't there. You were able to support her, you took the brunt of it, even as you were starting black out. And _she_ must have made a huge, conscious effort not to fight it."

"That effort would be staggering for her."

"Yes, it would be. It would be staggering for anyone. She must think you're worth it," Mitéra speculated. "Not to shut it out, just as a reflex... her mind is open to you. Everything about her is open to you, Doctor."

"But it's not just that," he continued. "She gave me a huge push. She... I don't know... _channelled_ something through me that caused the energy output to mushroom. Like..." He made a gesture with his hands that illustrated what he meant; a thing, burgeoning out, spouting like a fountain.

"Yes! She gave you her inner chaos - something volatile inside of her that touches you as well. You knew she would do that, Doctor, it was part of the plan!" Mitéra was smiling widely now.

"Yeah, I did," he conceded. "But it doesn't answer the question..."

"What question?"

"Your original question," he whispered emphatically. "Who is she?"

"You just told me who she is!"

He clicked his tongue with frustration. "No, no," he said, pulling his hand down over his face. "I didn't tell you the whole story about when we met."

"Oh?"

"Okay, that day in the hospital, it was not the first time I had seen her. That was just the... beginning of our relationship, as it were. When I saw her _that_ day, I guess I freaked her out. I sort of followed her about and tried to get her to tell me about the plasma coils because - well, it turned out I was wrong - but I thought..."

But his words were cut off by a groan. Both the Doctor's and Mitéra's eyes jetted in the direction of Martha, whose head was now lolling slowly back and forth.

The Doctor began to move toward her, and observed her pressing her palms to the floor. "No, don't try to sit up," he said, pressing his hand gently against her forehead. "Just get your bearings."

Martha's eyes were still shut, but she smiled. "Oh, good, you're here," she sighed. "I was afraid I was going to have to embark on some sort of epic journey in search of the Doctor. And do it with a migraine."

"Not today," he told her.

"Are we in the TARDIS?"

"Yep," he answered. "Home sweet home."

"Did you bring me here?"

"No," said Mitéra, now getting to her feet. "Some members of the Coven brought you both here."

"Thank you," the Doctor said, looking up at her, quite seriously. "I never said."

"It wasn't me, but... you're welcome."

"Where are the rest of the women?" he asked.

"Outside," she answered simply.

"Is the ritual still going on?"

"No, it's over. For now, anyway... until the fancy strikes them again, I suppose. To tide them over, they've formed a camp - they're fine, they're having fun. But when you get ready, we'd appreciate a lift home. Just let us know."

"Okay," the Doctor said.

With a soft smile, satisfied that the Doctor was all right, and that he would ensure the safety of his Companion, Mitéra left the TARDIS for the time being.

* * *

Over the next fifteen minutes, Martha opened her eyes, was able to focus on objects (the roundels on the ceiling), acclimated to the nausea and headache, and sat up. The Doctor asked her a series of basic questions, all of which she could answer, until he was satisfied that no permanent damage had been done. Eventually, he helped her up to the stool, then went down the hall and fetched her some Paracetamol for the headache.

"That was quite the brain-scrambling you endured," he said, looking at her meaningfully as he settled in, leaning against the console.

"Yeah, you too," she countered.

"Well, I'm different."

"I know, I know. Big, strong, Time Lord brain."

"How long were you able to stay conscious after I checked out?"

"I have no idea. Could have been ten seconds, could have been three minutes. I just tried to fight as long as I could."

He sat back from her and studied her for a few moments. "How the hell did you do that, Martha? Your mind would reflexively push out that sort of influence, if it was hurting you."

"I could feel resistance, but you did tell me that once you passed out, the pain would diminish, and you were right."

He nodded. "Because I was the driving force of it - the sonic augmentation was in my brain, not yours. Once I was out, you couldn't sustain it on your own. It would stay alive for a little while through you because we have a connection... whatever it was that you gave me out there - that extra _oomph_ of chaos - was strong enough to ensure that."

She looked at her hands in her lap shyly, ignoring the comment, more or less. "So, I forced myself to think about Parangelia," she told him. "What he's trying to do, and how wrong it is."

"That did it, eh?" He was sceptical.

"And what a smug bastard he is."

He smirked. "Oh, well, I can see how that would be proper motivation, then."

"And I thought about you."

"Me?"

"Of course," she smiled. "Really, I fought it, kept myself open, for you."

"You did?"

"Yes. I did it because you asked me to."

He smiled. "If I asked you to..."

"...jump off a bridge? Yeah, I probably would. But please don't ask me to, okay?"

He chuckled. "You have my word."

"The thing is, Doctor," her eyes fixed on some unspecified point on the console. "I don't know if you realise what _this life_ is like for me."

Something flipped over in his stomach, and he wasn't sure why. "How do you mean?" he asked with a scowl.

"Well, not just for me, but probably for Rose, and... actually, she's the only other one whose name I actually know. But for all of us, any of us, the people who travel with you. This life is seductive."

"I see."

"The adventure, the drama," she mused. "The TARDIS... you. You make people want to do things, even if they think they can't. _Even if they know they shouldn't_. There's a word for that."

"There is?"

She nodded. "Temptation. Or maybe... seduction."

"Erm, Martha..."

"Chaos and temptation," she said, smiling slightly. Then she actually made eye-contact. "Just like Dionysus. Maybe you are more like him than we thought. Do Time Lords believe in reincarnation? I mean, regeneration is one thing, but... a soul passing from one Time Lord to another, once the final regeneration has taken its course. Is that possible?"

"I really don't know, Martha. Anyway, just because Dionysus' tenure on Earth was before my time, it doesn't mean he _died_ before my time. He could have still been alive during the Time War for all I know."

"Makes sense. He probably died and regenerated after becoming a god on Earth. Weird to think of a Greek god regenerated and living into modern times."

There was a brief silence.

"Chaos and temptation," he repeated absently.

"Yeah. It's definitely palpable. Though, maybe it's just a Time Lord thing, not just a Dionysus thing. But with all of them gone, you must be the living embodiment of all of that, right?"

"I'm the living embodiment of chaos and temptation?"

She smiled, and looked away. "It sounds silly, but to me..." She stopped short, realising what she was about to say. He didn't ask her to continue. "Anyway, Dionysus was - is - the symbol of those things, at least on Earth. Even now. We know that he was sent in to fight the Apollonians because he was a Time Lord, he understood how to stop them bringing about the _wrong_ kind of order, even if he seemed sort of incompetent. Maybe he's been underestimated for all these years. Dionysus, and now you."

"Dionysus started a religion with hedonism at its core," he argued with scepticism in his voice.

She shrugged. "Look what _we_ just did out there."

He remembered that kiss, the big one, the epic moment that forced Martha's _internal chaos_ through him, and mushroomed their efforts. The volatility that she carried inside that touches him as well, that _she knew how_ to channel through him.

"I mean," she continued. "It wasn't exactly fornication in the dirt, but there was plenty of hallucination and dancing, and that _ecstatic_ quality that was so crucial to the chaos needed to slow down Apollonian order. And you... you were the catalyst for all of that. Because you understand as well. You can see what Dionysus saw."

"I can," he said with some finality.

"What remains in chaos? What remains orderly? And how exactly can chaos equal order? It's a line few dare to walk, and most can't even fathom... at least, that's what I imagine. Parangelia is trying to turn the universe inside-out because he can't see what you can see, Doctor. He can't see the chaos for the order that it is. The universe is in flux, time breathes... and it's _good._ "

She was staring into the Time Rotor now, watching the green light churn. "It must be like looking into a grain of salt and seeing the molecular structure inside. Like a crystal. Like, you see an old lady crossing the street, and you blink, and she becomes an atom, bonded intricately, and precariously, to the rest of the crystal, to other atoms, events in the universe. If one bond leads to her being hit by a car, will the crystal lose its integrity if you stop it happening, if you take that atom away? Or the bond? Or will the crystal hold true? Where is it, in the scheme of things? Can you save her, or does she have to die?"

The Doctor listened with something akin to amazement and dread. His face reflected both.

She looked at him. "God, that's a lot of responsibility. And you do it every day. You see everything that way. You can probably look at a person - or being, or entity - and know if they are someone's whose thoughts and emotions will reach across time and pluck at the string of ordered reality, and make it all fall to pieces. Do you see a glow, like a tincture of vortex on them? Or is it like a web, that person's relationship to all time and space? Are they part of the crystal, or is it something else? Maybe you can even see how, and from when and where across time will come that dreaded piece of sadness or joy..." she sighed.

"Martha..."

"You see that sort of chaos in me, don't you? You know that I'm someone who could strum reality out of existence, if Parangelia succeeds in making time linear."

"I told you I do."

"No, not just because I'm a time traveller alongside you, but... because of something in me. I reckon you could see it before we even said hello. I think that's why you chose me."

"I _do_ see it in you," he admitted, his mouth having gone dry.

That first day in the hospital - he had thought she was someone else, someone specific. Someone who certainly did have ties across time and space, with certain serious implications for him. As it turned out, he was wrong.

But _how_ wrong?

Her talk of the crystal, the web, the _tincture of vortex_ had been just a little too close to home for comfort. It was not _literally_ true, but... yes, when he saw an old lady cross the street, or a child cry, or a star explode, he could intangibly see an intricate forwards, backwards, sideways, diagonal non-sequential series of events and how they fit together with all of time and space. It could be compared to a crystal, a web, a network of roots, veins and arteries, or anything with connecting parts that support a whole. How could a "mere" human have that kind of perspective over his inner life? Most people he had known, they simply chose not to think of this aspect of him, or had let the idea of what he could know and see completely wash over them, overwhelm them to the point where it became meaningless. Had Martha really given it this much thought? Could _thought_ really get her to this point?

Because, somewhere behind his eyes, he saw what she described. And he saw _her_ in the crystal, as one of the atoms that made things move. She was part of the shape of things to come - he could feel it, ever since they met. But how did she fit in? How did she know?

And the extra dose of _chaos_ she had given him - it was the sparking uncertainty of questions unanswered, of a circuit that was incomplete. Knowledge untapped. Intentions undiscovered. Not only that, it seemed impossible that she could have thrown something so powerful at him if she didn't have _knowledge,_ if she weren't some kind of triangulating conduit in her own right. There was so much still to learn about her...

 _Who the hell are you, Martha Jones?_

* * *

 **I'm quite fond of this chapter. Hope you are too! Let me know - leave a review! It's only fair. ;-)**


	10. Chapter 10

**So... there's a lot of sci-fi babble. If you're confused, feel free to message me!**

 **And as Christmas is nigh, I wish you the merriest of holidays!**

* * *

CHAPTER 10

A Time Lord, a human, and two hundred members of the Coven of Chténes piled into the TARDIS and took a ride back to Empeiría, to bring the ladies home. The members departed with the promise that if their services were needed again, they would be more than happy to oblige, if it meant helping to save the universe. The Doctor shook hands with Mitéra, thanking her, and hinting that indeed, their "services" might be required again.

"If something goes wrong, we won't have time to need them again, will we?" asked Martha, once the TARDIS doors were shut.

"No," he said, running one hand nervously through his hair. "We won't."

And from there, the Doctor parked the TARDIS somewhere in deep space. They needed a non-distracting, non-dangerous place to think and work.

"What's the next step?" Martha asked.

He leaned back on the console and his eyes fixed on some point on the floor. "Remember when I said that we'd have to give Parengelia a chance to back off before we begin mucking about with the fabric of reality?"

"Oh," she said quietly. "We're going to begin mucking about with the fabric of reality."

"We're going to create the potential, yes," he said.

"Couldn't we just bomb the Compound?"

He looked at her with surprise. "No more Schwarzenegger movies for you."

"Sorry," she chuckled.

"Besides, even if we did bomb the Compound, it wouldn't stop what's happening."

"What?"

"That _machine_ he's got going in his lab, that blue-lightning zapper thing, cannot be just... _destroyed_ by conventional means."

"Of course it can't," she sighed.

"What it's doing... it's doing it outside of this dimension."

"How is that possible?" she asked with more curiosity than amazement.

"Oh, there are pocket dimensions all over the place," he told her. "You're standing in one."

"The TARDIS?"

"Yep. Well, the interior anyway. The door of the TARDIS is a compression field, and the walls act as a buffer space between dimensions. The field is just a gateway from this dimension to the one we're parked in. The compression, that's how the..."

"...bigger on the inside thing works. I get it," she finished, almost dismissing the whole exchange.

He studied her. A human could have got there that quick, couldn't she? Well, Martha's not average for a human, she's wicked clever. Her mind could have worked that fast. He was almost sure of it.

Almost.

She continued to speak before he was done thinking.

"But then, how is it that the dancing and hallucinating chaos we just produced out in the woods can affect the lineation, but a great big explosion can't?" she wondered.

His ruminations backed up a bit, as she was asking questions about Parangelia's process. If she were thinking on the plane and with the sort of knowledge he suspected she might have, this was stuff that she should know. Blimey, this was complicated.

"A great big explosion _could_ affect the process, in the sense that it would create chaos," the Doctor explained. "The walls around the machine would come tumbling down, and it would slow down the progress of the lineation... probably, admittedly, a hell of a lot more that the chaos _we_ created with the Coven. But obviously, I'm not willing to blow up the Compound just to slow it down."

"Obviously."

"As far as I know, Parangelia's family and staff are innocents."

"I would agree."

"The machine is affecting _this_ dimension, trying to impose order, therefore, the more chaos we drum up near the machine itself, the harder it has to work, the slower it will go, the better for us," he said. "But again, what you saw... the zapping, it's happening in a pocket dimension."

"So we'd have to set off a bomb _inside_ the pocket dimension."

"In theory that could work," he shrugged. "Because, the nearer to the machine that we can create chaos, the more effective it is. So yeah, ideally, we would detonate chaos _inside_ the machine itself. But it's not like we can just materialise the TARDIS inside of that pocket dimension and light a stick of dynamite. It's probably too small even for the TARDIS' outer shell. It might fracture reality even more if we tried that."

"So what _do_ we do? And how much time do we have?"

"We might have delayed him a week," he guessed. "But he's still making forward progress. I don't know if he's noticed that he's been sabotaged, but once we start talking to him, he'll have no choice but to notice. From there, I have no idea how long before he finds a way to increase his speed again, but it won't be long - he's already got an equation that might have sped the whole thing up exponentially, remember? He walked away from it just before working it out."

"I remember you telling me about it."

"Right, so... we operate as though we have no time to lose."

"Tell me what to do," she said, gesturing with her arms.

He squinted at her, contemplating her. "I'll tell you as soon as I know. I'm just not sure of your role yet."

* * *

He dived almost immediately under the console and began drilling a conduit to and from the Vortex in the TARDIS' heart.

The Vortex in its nebulous nature, it was no wonder Parangelia would want to make it linear. For the moment, fortunately, most of the Vortex was still navigable, chaotic, just the way the Doctor had always known it to be. It had many qualities, including the ability to lend its power to a proper vessel (such as the TARDIS) and appropriate things around it.

The problem was that it was huge, and by its very nature, imprecise.

"And that's the bit that means we're screwing with the fabric of reality, yeah?" asked Martha, as the Doctor explained.

"Yep," he said, his head under the main column of the console.

"Do we know what kind of damage we're going to do?"

"Not really," he admitted. "It's going to be a _shoot first and ask questions later_ sort of situation. If we have to, we'll fly about and patch up holes. Hopefully, if it comes to that, Parangelia's machine will be halted in his tracks, and we'll have plenty of latitude to travel and do our thing."

"Hopefully," she corrected. "It won't come to that."

"Well, yeah. Clearly."

* * *

This time, going in, they had coordinates directly into Araxia Parangelia's laboratory, and were able to materialise in the room itself.

When they stepped out of the TARDIS, the Doctor with a makeshift remote in-hand, and Martha behind him, the madman himself was sitting very much the way they had seen him before: at a drafting table where he had, presumably, been knocking out equations. Only now, he had his mouth hanging open in shock.

 _Score one for us_ , thought the Doctor. _At least he's surprised._

"Parangelia," the Doctor said, genially. "How've you been, mate? I just wanted to keep the _lines_ of communication open, you know. Get it? _Lines_?"

Parangelia did not respond.

"Sorry," the Time Lord said in mock-awkward retreat. "Just a bit of linear humour. So... how's the process going? Slowed down a bit?"

Parangelia looked up at the time-steam wafting in from outside, and the blue lightning zapping it into submission. From his expression, the Doctor could tell he hadn't noticed yet.

"Yeah, well, that would be us," the Doctor continued. "Sorry - we're pains in the arse like that. But at any rate, we thought we'd come and give you one last chance to stand down."

"Stand down?" Parangelia said finally, smirking at the Time Lord's presumption.

"Yes," answered the Doctor. "You must have worked out that you're going to destroy the universe, doing what you're doing."

"Not all parts of it," said the madman. "Just the parts..."

"...that don't _fall in line_? That insist on attempting to flout your laws of order? The parts that _deserve it_?"

"Precisely."

"No, no, no, it doesn't work that way. All things in the universe are connected - trust me, I can see them. And when you put them all on one little thread of existence, all things become unstable. That means, one big pluck at the thread and it all comes tumbling down."

"Nonsense."

"Look, Parangelia, I'm a Time Lord. You stole our technology, so you spent some time studying. You'll know, then, that it's in my DNA to be privy this stuff," said the Doctor, calmly, wearily. "And right now, I'm the only man in the universe who can help you."

"Is that so?" asked Parangelia, again with the smirk.

"It is," said the Doctor. "I'm the only one who can say to you with any certainty that you are in the midst of shattering all life in existence, at every point in time. You will destroy your planet. Your home, your family and yourself."

"Perhaps it's all collateral damage."

"You don't really believe that, do you? You're no suicide bomber - you're a wannabe despot! How can you have any power whatsoever if you're wiped out of existence, and so is everything else?" The Doctor paused for effect. Then, "But it doesn't matter, because in any case, if you don't back off, I will stop you."

Parangelia laughed. "How do you propose you'll do that?"

"Yes, please, let me tell you all my plans, while you work out a way to undo them," the Doctor said sarcastically. "I've learned nothing in my trouble-shooting travels across the universe."

Again, Parangelia chuckled. "You said it yourself, Time Lord, I know all about your technology." He eyed the blue police box looming behind the Doctor. "That's your vehicle - a TARDIS, is it? My guess is that you've worked out the fact that my Lineator is operating in a pocket dimension, since Time Lords are so clever and all."

Now, it was the Doctor's turn to stand stunned and non-committal. Martha's eyes grew large with dread and she couldn't help but search the Doctor for an answer, or reassurance.

"And because _I'm_ so clever," the wannabe despot continued. "I know that your TARDIS' interior also exists in a pocket dimension - how else _could_ it exist? Bigger on the inside... how delightful!"

Both of the travellers felt their stomachs turn.

"Therefore, you've probably rigged up some way for your pocket dimension to integrate itself with my pocket dimension," Parangelia speculated.

The Doctor recovered himself, and explained, "It will, as you say, _integrate itself_ with any pocket dimension within a light-year."

Parangelia lifted his eyebrows. "That's rather... inexact."

"Most of the Vortex is still in chaos for the moment. It's powering my TARDIS like it always does... but it's hard to control. Well, for most people, eh? Maybe if I had months to work on it, I could rig it to _just_ integrate with the Lineator, but as you know, time is of the essence."

"Wow, Doctor. That's an awful lot of destruction you're about to bring about yourself," Parangelia taunted, as though he were speaking to a child. "Are you ready to face up to that?"

"I am," the Doctor assured him. "Are you? Because if you think time is in chaos right now, just wait until I get my hands on it! My TARDIS in the same little pocket as your machine... not only would it halt the machine in its tracks, it would stir up so much chaos in the air around you, you'd go mad from the voices in your own head! You see, that's the problem with order, Parangelia - too much of it, and everything becomes sanitised to the point of madness itself. You'll be breathing chaos. Seeing it in the atoms. Just think of it - you won't be able to take the grating on your senses."

"You underestimate me."

"Then try me," the Doctor dared him, having found his footing again. "Little pieces of reality fractured all over this galaxy. Time loops and ditches, open cracks to the void... the kind of disorder that would have you confined to a little padded room for the rest of your natural life. Care to risk it, or will you call this off?" He held up the remote in his hand.

"I don't think so, Doctor. Not even Dionysus could get us to renounce our mission."

"No, he didn't make you renounce anything. He forced you into retreat!"

"And you are no Dionysus," Parangelia insisted. Then he changed his tone. "Actually, in very many ways, you are more formidable. But I, as you have already seen, am much more formidable than my forbears. I am the product of thousands of years of research. Simply put, Doctor, in the same way you feel you know what kind of abominable disorder will _grate_ on me, I know a thing or two about Time Lord senses."

Parangelia backed up about five paces, and he turned and bent to squint at one of the drafting tables, specifically at an equation.

A split second before it happened, the Doctor realised what Parangelia would do. He had a flash. He remembered being in this room before, and having seen the equation that would increase the speed of the lineation process exponentially. He had told Martha it was just a matter of time until the insane patriarch realised what he had, and deployed it.

In the first split second, the Doctor's instinct was to reach for the sonic screwdriver and beat the madman to the punch. It was this that caused the delayed reaction; it took him just a tick or two too long to remember that the sonic manipulation was now in his mind.

He _aimed and thought_ at the Lineator, even though he knew the sonic screwdriver in any form could not damage it.

At that moment, Parangelia leapt for his control panel in the back of the room. And, the Apollonian was just a hair faster than the Time Lord.

The strain of using the sonic caused the Doctor to recoil from the sudden blast of pain, and he fell against Martha. In her surprise, she called out his name and caught him, just barely able to stay on her feet.

She helped him stand upright without his faculties yet intact, when, in the next second or two, the Lineator's actions sped up fivefold. The lightning bolts grew louder, and the wafting time-steam grew markedly thicker. Martha cursed aloud, as the increased disturbance in time caused the Doctor's guts to churn. He doubled over in his nausea with a groan, and went to his knees.

"Doctor!" she cried out, trying once again to catch him.

As he fell, the remote tumbled to the floor and skidded away. Martha let out an inarticulate cry and lurched forward, reaching for it awkwardly. But by then, Parangelia had dashed back into place, and his foot was now resting squarely on the device.

She sat back, and looked up at him with fear in her eyes, watching helplessly as he gave her a wicked smile and ground it to pieces under the heel of his black boot.

"Oh," Parangelia said to her, silkily. "It looks like time's run out."

* * *

 **As a Christmas present to me, why not leave a review under my tree? ;-) (Hey, that rhymes!)**


	11. Chapter 11

**Okay... a lot of (again) sci-fi babble, quite a bit of ambiguity. I repeat: if you're confused, feel free to send me a message. I think you'll like the way this chapter ends! ;-)**

 **Please review, let me know your thoughts!**

* * *

CHAPTER 11

"Just because the remote is gone, that doesn't mean the TARDIS' inner dimension can't still absorb the Lineator's dimension, does it? It was just a trinket!" Martha speculated in half-panic as she locked the TARDIS' door behind them, and helped the Doctor up the ramp.

The Doctor shook his head. "Ordinarily you'd be right, but one of the qualities of this _thing_ I rigged up - which was dodgy to begin with - was the fact that it needed a triangulating signal. It stabilised it somewhat. The remote wasn't just a remote, it carried one point of the signal needed to make the transfer... to make the TARDIS dimension swallow up the Lineator dimension..."

"...and all others within a light year," she said to herself, shaking her head with the gravity of it all.

He had to force himself to stand up straight. Then he moved his hands over the controls to make the vessel move. It deployed its signature groan, and materalised once again in deep space.

"Well, you rigged up that one in a matter of a couple of hours," she pointed out, after coming out of her short reverie. "Couldn't you do it again?"

"No, Parangelia will see it coming now," he told her. "He'll be working out equations to stop it... he'll have a counter-attack ready to go."

He steadied himself on the console.

"Still nauseated?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"No."

"Is it still because Parangelia increased the speed? Because of the disturbance in that room?"

"I don't think so," he said, as a wave passed and he stood up straight once again. "Other things are in motion, Martha. I'm starting to see it take shape."

Suddenly he focused on her, looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.

"What?" she asked self-consciously.

"I see it, I see you," he told her. His eyes widened with realisation. "That dimension-integration thing was never going to work!"

"It wasn't?"

"No! And Parangelia had to destroy the remote for it all to become clear!"

"Doctor, what the hell are you talking about? And why are you looking at me like that?"

He tried to relax his face, but his surprise just morphed into a frown, and Martha returned the expression.

"It's complicated," he said.

"Yeah, I'm getting that," she retorted. "Everything with you is complicated. Stop treating me a like a child. Tell me what's going on! You've been acting funny since we did the ritual."

He stared at her for a few moments longer, before taking a deep breath, pulling his eyes away and making his way slowly to the lone seat in the console room. He sat, and stared now at the ceiling for a few moments.

"I've been wondering who you are," he confessed, without looking at her.

"Who I am?" she asked. "What do you mean, _who I am_?"

"Do you remember the day we met?" he asked, still not making eye-contact.

"Of course," she shrugged. "My whole life changed that day."

"You met me for the first time that day, yeah?"

"Yes," she said slowly, wonderingly.

"But it was not the first time I had met you."

She was silent for a moment, thinking. It had been a good long time since she'd contemplated _that_. He had definitely approached her that day, after their first(ish) contact on rounds with Mr. Stoker, as though he already knew her, and thought she was privy to information that even _he_ didn't know. But that chapter of the morning had been eclipsed by the rain, the moon, the Judoon. Mr. Stoker was exsanguinated by a pensioner with a straw, they ran, ducked, had a quick ruse-creating snog, and she got to know the Doctor as she now knew him.

But now he mentioned it, what the hell _was_ that?

"What is going on, Doctor? What are you seeing in the Time Lord cinema behind your eyes?"

"Remember what I said earlier, when deciding how to foil Parangelia's machine? Ideally, we would detonate chaos _inside_ the pocket dimension that contains machine itself."

"Right. And you said, it's probably too small even for the TARDIS' outer shell."

He nodded. "But there might be something small enough, smaller than the TARDIS, that _could_ be used... that could be _tossed_ inside, as it were."

"Okay. You already said that a stick of dynamite, or anything like that, would fracture reality."

"Funny, eh, since all of reality is already at stake?"

"Funny's not the word I would have chosen," she said. "But I get your meaning. So what are we tossing in?"

"A chaotic time event," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"Think about it," he said, his face going rather maniacal with the plans mapping themselves out in his head. "The Lineator seeks to produce order all across time. Its foil is chaos. Ideally, as we said, we would detonate something inside the pocket universe where the Lineator does its thing... what's better than a chaotic time event, to completely mess things up in the orderly pocket that Parangelia has created?"

"Yeah, okay, I get that, but..."

"And I'm not sure how far along the Lineator has got," he continued without hearing her. "But the Lineator itself, and its pocket dimension, will exist at all points on the timeline where it has succeeded in lineating."

"It will?"

"Yes! Therefore, it can be accessed from the Vortex."

She nodded vigourously. "I think I get it. You're telling me the pocket dimension has expanded, or stretched, or..."

"No," he said. "It hasn't. It exists at all points of time, not space."

"Okay, then, I'm lost."

Again, he basically ignored her comment. "It's still tiny, that's the bad news. Sort of. The good news is, if we can access it from the Vortex, it means that we don't have to go back into the Compound. Parangelia won't be able to stop us, assuming this works."

She sighed. "I'll just wait until your brain is back in this room before I ask any more questions."

He looked at her directly. "You can't fly the TARDIS... at least not with any kind of precision. So there's only one way to make this thing work."

"Oh, are you talking to me now?"

"I know someone who can help us," he said very quietly, still boring holes into her with his eyes. "But it's too risky for me to try and talk to him."

"How's that? I'll assume he doesn't lead a fire-dancing Coven."

The Doctor shook his head. "No. If I went to ask for help myself, it might not matter how far the Lineator had got, and/or where we are in time. Something like that could give time itself a good enough strum to make the whole thing moot." He began to pace. "I mean, it's not like there isn't a precedent for it, but even on a good day, it's risky. Things being what they are... that is to say, not a good day... yeah, I can't do it myself."

"So is that where I come in?" she asked.

"Indeed it is, Martha. You can't fly the TARDIS, and I can't ask for help. Therefore..."

"Yes?"

"Are you listening?"

"Yes!" she insisted, almost shouted. "I've been listening since that day in the hospital! I do almost nothing but listen to you, Doctor!"

He stopped pacing and faced her squarely. "I'm about to tell you the plan, Martha. And I need you to go along with it, even if you don't agree with it. Because it will save the universe."

"Why wouldn't I agree with it?"

"In every aversion of disaster, there is risk."

"Given."

"And we're about to take a big risk."

"Okay."

"Well, I am."

"I thought you said you weren't going to ask for help from this fellow you know, because it could cause a disaster."

"That's risking the universe, which I'm not willing to do, especially while I'm trying to save it. I find that to be counter-productive," he explained. "I am, however, willing to risk _myself_."

"Doctor..."

He shushed her. "No time for this. Are you going to help me, or not?"

"What if I said no?"

He pulled a face and groaned. "Eh, well, I could do it without you, but it would be even messier than it's already going to be. It would be harder, and take longer, and we don't have..."

"Shut up, Doctor. You know I'll do it," she said, grudgingly. "Just... don't risk any more than you have to, yeah?"

* * *

Over the next ten minutes, the Doctor went over the plan, and the "script," as it were. Martha's stomach turned, once she realised just _how_ he was risking himself in this operation, and how likely it was that he would be lost, trying to save the universe.

"I can't fly the TARDIS, as you pointed out, Doctor," she said, with a touch of panic in her voice. "What am I supposed to do if you never come back?"

"The TARDIS has an emergency protocol that will take you home, in the event of my... incapacitation. And also, my _friend_ has a way of bringing you home."

She didn't like it.

"Now, mind you," he continued. "Sending you to ask for help instead of me, it's not exactly a clean operation itself, but it's kind of all we've got. _Your_ talking to him carries risks as well, the same kind of time-anomaly risks as mine would... just not as big. Therefore, it is paramount that you stick to what I said... there is a certain way you must act with him. A certain distance you must keep."

"I get it. This is the third time you've told me."

"Be cryptic. Tell him only the basics- tell him only what _he needs to do_. He'll ask questions in spite of himself - don't give him anything more than his job. Don't tell him who is responsible. Don't tell him how we found out about the lineating... in fact, if you can help it, don't tell him about the lineating. Try to keep out anything about a pocket universe. And above all, Martha..."

"...don't tell him who I am."

"Exactly. He's going to think he knows who you are. Do not confirm nor deny. Do not dissuade him from thinking what he's going to think... it will actually help him to trust you."

Events, concepts, retrospect... it was all starting to take shape in Martha's mind as memories and ideas came together. "Blimey this is weird."

He ran both hands through his hair, as though harried. "Yeah. And super dangerous... but again, it's all we've got."

They were both silent for a few moments, deep in thought. Then something came to her. "Wait, use me!" she exclaimed.

"Use you for what?"

"Don't risk your own life. Risk mine! The universe could do without me if something goes wrong, but it needs you! You can precision-fly the TARDIS, and you wouldn't have to take the chance of asking for help from... this fellow you can't talk to. And you told me when this whole thing began that I probably have what it takes to make this plan work!"

"No," he said emphatically.

"Why not?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"I'm not risking you, Martha, and that's final."

"I don't want to risk _you_!"

He folded his arms over his chest. "Martha, what would you do if wafting time debris started to make its way into your brain, while you were in the process of foiling the Lineator?"

"What?"

"Exactly," he shouted. "I can shut it out because I'm a Time Lord. You can't!"

"How the hell would time debris get into my brain? Can it be breathed?"

"No, it just would. How many sentient beings do you think have done something like this, Martha? The answer is, not very bloody many, because it's _dangerous_. It could not only kill someone, it could drive them mad or give them brain damage..."

"You're not helping me feel better!" she shouted back.

"The point is, it would _definitely_ nearly annihilate you, and then I'd have to, at the very least, return you to your mother in a straight jacket or a vegetative state. I have a fighting chance at coming through it with my faculties intact, all right? Now stop arguing, we don't have time!"

She pursed her lips, resigned, but annoyed. "Fine. How close are we to locating him?"

"Very close," he answered, hands on the controls, eyes on the computer screen.

"What's that noise?" Martha asked, hearing a higher-than-usual grinding coming from somewhere inside, or underneath, the console.

"The TARDIS is resisting," he told her. "Understandably."

The room was silent for about a minute, and then the Doctor announced, "Okay, I found him." He was scowling as the TARDIS' gears halted and the vessel came to a stop.

"Okay," she said, trying to sound calm, as her stomach did flips. "Where are we?"

"St. John's Wood," he muttered. "18 May, 2012."

"Why here, why now?" she wondered.

"It's the hometown and home-era of someone called Adam Mitchell. He's not important. What is important is that this is just before an event involving a time paradox, and some reapers," he told her. "Or, maybe it's twenty-five years after it, depending on how one chooses to see things, I suppose. I see, in the Time Lord cinema behind my eyes, that it would be best if this all gets resolved before that happens."

"All right. Any last-minute instructions?"

"Just be careful, he said earnestly."

"I will."

He cleared his throat uncomfortably and went back to the screen. "The, er, vessel you're looking for is parked round the corner. Just walk a hundred feet forward, and turn right when you get to the pub at the end of the block."

"Okay. I'll see you on the other side, yeah?"

"Yeah." He did not make eye-contact.

She walked out of the TARDIS with the horrible, distinct feeling that she would never see the man in pin-stripes again.

But the universe would continue to exist.

But without him, for how long?

She tried not to think about it as she reached the corner. She turned to her right. Sitting against a brick wall, innocently unnoticed by everyone in the vicinity save for her, was a blue police box.


	12. Chapter 12

**Mismatched Doctor and Companion... an idea that's just exciting, and it's hard to explain why. Hee hee!**

 **Please don't forget to review, all you silent followers! (You know who you are! ;-) )**

* * *

CHAPTER 12

A tall, broad-shouldered man stood on a ladder, repairing the climate control mechanism of the ship he used for travelling across and through the universe. He had a motley collection of tools in a box on the ladder's platform that had been made for a paint can, and used them to burrow into the curved wall of the console room. Nearby, his Companion sat on the room's only surface for sitting, in a brood.

After hearing her sigh pointedly for the fifth time, he glanced at her sideways. "Oi, are you seriously still brooding _over a boy_?" he asked her, hoping his mocking would amuse her, rather than piss her off.

"Maybe," she mumbled flatly, neither amused nor pissed off.

"You were too good for him," said the man.

"I know."

"Then why the big mope?"

She sighed heavily. "Just... why can't I pick a nice, stand-up guy? Why am I always attracted to losers?"

"Your Mickey is no loser," protested the man, as he came down the ladder. He picked up the black leather jacket he'd left draped over one of the rails round the controls, and put it on.

"You don't think he's a loser? That's news to me!" Then she frowned, as she came to a particular conclusion. "Blimey, I just realised, this is all _your_ fault! If you had let Mickey come with us, I never would have taken up with Adam, and then..."

"Rose, the universe is a mysterious place," he said. "We can never know from one moment to the next what consequence our choices will carry. That's part of the fun!"

He gave her a big goofy grin that enhanced his icy blue eyes and wide mouth. She couldn't help but smile back.

"You don't actually _believe_ what you just said, do you? Because coming from you, that lot sounds like rubbish," she told him, her tongue mischievously stuck between her teeth. She knew she was being a provocateur.

"Fair cop. Although, someone like me... I know so much of what's gone on across time and space... I get into a bind and more often than not, I'm pretty sure I can get out of it. But then, there's my personal timeline," he mused, now veering off into a tangent. "Sometimes, the only thing that keeps it fresh for me are my personal choices and risks. As a result, things go awry, or maybe they don't. But it's my personal timeline, and you know what? I don't _want_ to know!"

"This is supposed to make me feel better about Adam, and the fact that I'm a loser-magnet?"

"No, it's supposed to make you less cross with me over not letting Mickey come with us. Live and learn. That means forget about Adam... he actually _is_ a loser."

"Yeah, okay."

"Besides, I did invite Mickey to come with us."

"What?"

"Last time we were at your estate."

"Doctor!"

"He turned me down - said he couldn't handle it. Asked me not to tell you. He was afraid it would make you see him as weak."

She looked at him, jaw agape for a few moments. "Why'd you tell me?"

"Because you need to know. He's not weak and he's not a loser."

"Well, I basically know that."

"Then why did you call him a loser?" he asked, exasperated with her, and his voice showed it.

"Because I thought you thought he was a loser!"

"Why do you care so much what I think?"

"Seriously, Doctor?"

At that moment, there was a knock at the door that stopped their conversation dead in its tracks.

"Who the hell is that?" Rose whispered frantically, getting up from her seat.

"How should I know?" the Doctor whispered back. "It's not like I was expecting company."

"I told you we shouldn't have parked in Adam's neighbourhood! Maybe he's found us and wants a second chance!"

"Well, blimey, if that were all we had to worry about..."

The Doctor scowled and moved down the ramp. He opened the door, and found a woman standing there with an easy smile on her face. She was a black woman, about five-foot-two, attractive, and had cleverness practically oozing out of her eyes. At first assessment, it didn't seem that she was armed, or wanted to do them harm, but he knew that appearances could be deceiving.

"Hello, Doctor," she chirped.

* * *

The Doctor had, at different brief intervals during their friendship, mentioned "regeneration," and that he had had entirely different faces, bodies, voices and personalities in the past. He had never, however, elaborated on any of those other looks or personalities. And so, when Martha Jones knocked on the door of the blue box, she had no idea what to expect. Just about _anyone_ could answer!

A frowning man with very closely-cropped hair, exaggerated features and a hard look about him opened the door. Though in this face, she recognised absolutely nothing of the Doctor she knew and loved, she could not imagine who else he could be. So she took a shot.

"Hello, Doctor," she chirped.

"Hello," he said, just before smiling widely, almost comically. "And you are?"

"A friend," she said. "May I come in?"

"Oh sure," he said, sarcastically. "Can I get you a chamomile tea? How about some crumpets? Do people actually eat those?"

"I have something sensitive to discuss with you, Doctor, and I would really rather not do it in the street."

"I don't let just anyone into my TARDIS, you know."

She held his gaze meaningfully for a moment, then said, "I'm not just anyone. Time is running out. Quite literally. It is imperative that I speak to you. I need your help."

He contemplated her for a few moments, then said, "Any funny business..."

"...any funny business and I'll hand _myself_ over to the Shadow Proclamation, all right?" she interrupted.

He stepped aside and gestured for her to come in.

As she brushed past him, she was mindful of an illusion she was attempting to maintain. She tried to show no emotion whatsoever.

Of course, these days she thought of the TARDIS as home, and was prepared for the fact that it was bigger on the inside. Weirdly, though, she was not prepared for this console room to be exactly the same as the one she had just walked out of. The Doctor had also mentioned at some point that the TARDIS' interior was equally capable of regeneration. In hearing this, she had assumed that it would regenerate whenever the Doctor did. The fact that the room she now stood in was so _familiar_ actually made her a bit uneasy.

A pretty blonde stood near the console. "Oh. Hello," from her position standing by the door, Martha said, rather surprised to see her. She hadn't thought about a Companion. She wondered at _her_ Doctor's judgement, and the fact that they would be involving yet another person in this endeavour, which would complicate things, as well as put her in danger.

"Hi," said the blonde. "I'm... Rose." She waved uneasily, and said her name as though she weren't sure what exactly it was. Martha reckoned that Rose really wasn't sure whether she should say anything at all.

 _Don't show surprise, don't show emotion..._

Martha nodded and gave a bright smile. "Right." She tried to be friendly enough to compensate for the fact that she couldn't introduce herself. Then, she quickly turned to the man in the leather jacket. "Doctor, we don't have much time."

"Much time for what? You still haven't told me who you are!" he protested. Martha had already noticed a distinct accent that seemed to come from the North of England. She resolved to ask _her_ Doctor about that later. If she ever saw him again, that is.

"I said I was your friend," she told him calmly. "That's the truth. I can't say too much about it, Doctor... things are _fragile."_

Something in her tone made him take notice. "Fragile? How d'you mean?" He settled into a position with his feet apart and his arms crossed over his chest. Inwardly, she smiled; some things never change.

"There's a disturbance in time. There's a... process going on," she explained, delicately. "Believe me when I tell you that any anomaly could _strum_ at the fabric of reality. An anomaly like, say, this one." She gestured to himself and her.

"This meeting is an anomaly?" he asked, barely moving his lips.

"The more you know, the more danger we're all in."

He contemplated her for a few seconds. Then, "What do you mean _a disturbance? A process?_ Could you be a little more vague about it, please?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. _Vague_ is all I can manage right now."

"Manage more."

She sighed. She steadied and steeled her eyes against his. "The Vortex is being perverted. The intricate latticework of time and space is in danger. The web, the strings that pull at every event across the cosmos... it's all about to disappear. There will be no strings. There will be no navigation of those strings."

"I see."

"Imagine if you can, _one string_ for all time."

"One string for all time?" he asked, his face contorted in alarm and confusion. "That makes absolutely no..."

"Are you going to help or not?" she asked, before he had time to think it through.

He looked her over suspiciously, pushing his tongue into his cheek. Martha longed to glance at Rose, just to see how she was reacting to all of this.

"What would I have to do?" he asked.

"There's a man, a man who is _very_ like you, but with a few more years' knowledge and experience - do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Sort of," he responded, looking at her with leery confusion.

"He will be falling through an enmeshed tarpaulin within the Vortex," she said. "He is, as we speak, attempting to determine exactly where it begins, at least from our side of it."

"An enmeshed tarpaulin? That would take an enormous amount of power and..."

"...and thousands of years' research into Gallifreyan physics and methods of manipulation, yes," she agreed. "The Time War left everyone's guard down, what can I say? The point is, his presence in it will produce a disengagement of the enmeshing filaments, which will negate the detrimental effects to the environment at large, and reduce the risk of temporal collapse. Timefall, if you will."

"I don't suppose you'd tell me in what form the filaments are being enmeshed? Or the function or extent of the tarpaulin?"

"It's definitely better if I don't," she said. Though, truthfully, she wasn't entirely sure she understood the question. "We just need you to catch him, and deliver him back to his own vessel."

"Which is where?"

"I didn't ask. He'll tell us when the time comes."

He examined her even more. "The stuff you just said, the knowledge you have," he said. "It could only be seen and really, really _known_ by a Time Lord."

His gravelly voice rang foreign in her ears. His accent even made the words _Time Lord_ sound strange, where usually the concept felt, if not cosy and familiar, at least reverent and steadfast. Said with _her_ Doctor's voice, it was awesome and something she wanted to follow, explore, learn from. This man... she could hardly believe he was the same guy, though he must have some warmth about him, or else he couldn't really be the Doctor, could he? He couldn't have survived this long, and he couldn't have convinced Rose to come along with him. Briefly, she wondered at Rose's lot - how must she have felt when _her_ Doctor became the Doctor that Martha knew?

"Yes, it could," she responded.

"But there's only one Time Lord left."

"Yes, there is."

The Doctor gulped hard. "So, you're..."

She interrupted him again. "Anomalies. The less you know."

He looked at her for several moments without blinking. His stark blue eyes were wide, and his lower lip was slack with stupefaction. His stance was still the same, and it felt like forever that nothing moved in the TARDIS.

"What's causing it? The mesh?" he asked, rather quietly.

"I can't say."

"Do you even _know_ what's causing it?"

"Yes. We have... instruments." She subtly nodded at the console when she said this. She knew as soon as she did it that it was a mistake. She reminded herself only to answer questions he had asked, if even those. After another long silence, Martha said, "Doctor, you know you can trust me." She attempted to assure him, more with her eyes than with her words.

Another long silence ensued. Martha could hear only Rose's nervous breathing.

"Or, if you don't _know,_ can you at least take a chance?" she asked, after the Doctor had said nothing for an uncomfortably long time. "We're working a deadline, here. There is serious danger and I really need your help."

He took a pause, then, "All right then." His voice echoed through the domed room. He let go of his stance and headed up the ramp. "Let's just do it." It occurred to Martha that _her_ Doctor would say _allons-y_ at this juncture.

Martha arrived on the platform with him, and Rose looked at her with fear. "Doctor, what is happening?"

"I'm not entirely sure," he said, pulling levers and getting the console ready to move. "Someone's messing with time. An enmeshed tarpaulin, or, say, a tightly-woven metaphorical rug is stretching out across time... doing something to reality that isn't good. A... er, _friend_ of mine is going to literally toss himself into it because he carries with him at all times elements that would naturally unravel the threads keeping it taut. He won't have his own vessel, once he reaches the end of the damage, so we're going to meet him there. And then make sure he gets the hell out of here as soon as possible."

"And who is _she?_ " asked Rose. She sounded half-panicked.

The Doctor looked at Martha squarely. "Also a friend. That's all you need to know."

"Doctor..." Rose piped up again, unhappy to have been dismissed.

"Where do we catch him?" asked the Doctor.

"He's throwing himself through backwards, so..."

"At the beginning of time," the Doctor said.


	13. Chapter 13

**Long and weird. Difficult to write - still not quite right! (T _ry saying that five times fast!_ )**

 **But it was also quite fun, and quite different, so please enjoy.**

* * *

CHAPTER 13

The Doctor loved his sonic screwdriver.

He could not claim that it had never let him down... but it had _rarely_ let him down, and never on purpose.

Those _rare_ occasions are what made him so cautious with this occasion.

The way he saw it, he had two choices.

Choice one: disengage the sonic function from his brain, and lodge it back into the physical screwdriver itself. It would be safer for _him_ , but would require a fair amount of meditation time, plus the time it would take to reprogram the sonic to do what he needed it to do. This would delay the implementation of his plan (which was semi-suicidal anyway) to throw himself into vortex to unravel the filaments of Parangelia's tarpaulin. With this option, he was gambling big. He was betting the universe that the mad Apollonian had not yet worked out a way to increase the speed of his process exponentially, and that some simple anomaly would not pluck at the fibre of existence and destroy the universe.

Choice two: skip the meditation, save time, leave the sonic function in his brain, and reprogram it as-is. This would be risky for him because frankly, his brain was perhaps the mightiest in existence, but it was still made of squishy grey matter. It wasn't meant to perform sonic tasks from afar or to absorb the reverb that came with it. Not to mention, doing it several times in one day, plus having to wrest wafting time debris out of his brain, while swimming through the tarpaulin. Augmenting the chaotic energy as he had done with the Coven earlier, that was dangerous enough. But this? This could kill him. So... if he survived the big dive through the perverted Vortex, he still had to summon his own TARDIS out of the Vortex to materialise someplace concrete in the universe via sonic pulse, which could put out his lights completely.

On the positive side, it would probably be slow enough to allow him to regenerate. On the negative side, it would hurt a hell of a lot, and would not stop hurting after the regeneration. In fact, his mind might never be the same. And, well... he liked this body (especially the hair) and hadn't had time to come to terms with the prospect of a new man wearing his suit.

But choice two allowed him to execute the plan ASAP, and therefore, held less risk for the universe at-large, even if his own brain might fry, so...

Materialising the TARDIS remotely using the sonic could be done without pre-programming, but the process became dodgier, the farther away the two devices were. It stood to reason. Pulling the TARDIS out of intangible time and bringing it to Earth would be nigh on impossible, unless he planned ahead. And so, where he might ordinarily have plugged the sonic into a port on the console, he used wires to interface the TARDIS' processor with his brain directly. He fed coordinates for a particular spot in London in the spring of 2007 into the TARDIS, then back into the sonic function. Those coordinates were now shared between the sonic and the TARDIS. Bringing the TARDIS to them, once they were on Earth, would still require an enormous amount of power, but at least the coordinates would be precise.

He disconnected the wires, and before he could think about it or change his mind, he navigated the TARDIS out of physical space, as always happened when the TARDIS was between destinations, and hovered it in time.

And now, outside, there was nothing but uncensored Vortex.

He had contemplated the Vortex via the console room's screen, and via the Time Rotor before, but he had _never_ opened the door while the vessel was flying through. This was partly because the trip through the Vortex typically occurred in less than a few seconds, but mostly it was because... well, he valued his life. Usually.

And so, he walked to the TARDIS' door, though he did not hurry. He scowled at the door handle, as though it were the harbinger of all of his problems, and as though the frown on his face could give him mettle. He reached out and pulled.

Beyond the threshold, blue, spinning light flew past, swirled around and spun into an endless, nebulous tube of continual time. It seemed to permeate him - soaking into his pores, overwhelming and exhilarating. It blew his hair back from his face and he could scarcely keep his eyes open, with the impact and enormity of it. Somewhere within, he wondered, "What the hell was I thinking? There's no way I'm going to be able to do this... no way I'll find the strength, no way I'll survive, even if I do. I'll have to find another way!"

But Parangelia was clever, and time was running out. He had already sent Martha into a semi-precarious situation with his former self, not to mention involving Rose in all of this. Unless Martha happened to catch the "Ninth" Doctor in one of the very short intervals during which Rose was not in the TARDIS with him, then she would be along for the ride. He was risking her life as well, and chancing a meeting between her and his _present_ incarnation, before its appointed time. Given the relationship issues there... well, that could end in disaster, and for the life of him, he couldn't remember how it would all go. That would be cross-contacted timelines repairing themselves, coping with the paradox.

In that moment, he thought of everyone he had ever known, at every point in time. If the madman's plan succeeded, it would almost certainly wipe out _everything_. Not just the universe as he knew it, but the universe as he had _ever_ known it. All of history, eventually, gone. Time Lords, humans, Daleks, Sontarans, even Empeiríans and Apollonians, would basically never have existed. Unless everyone quit thinking, quit feeling, quit living and having adventures and...

If he'd had the sonic in his hand, he would have aimed it at the standard navigation toggle, the joystick that allowed the TARDIS' pilot literally to _steer_ the ship. But since the sonic was in his mind, he did his best to move it via his newfound technological telekinesis, and flew down and forward, keeping his sharp eyes peeled for anything anomalous, anything that could be the result of a lineating influence. Namely, threads of time, the almost literal evidence of a _fabric_ being made on a loom, and pulled so tight, nothing would ever escape.

It, along with the machine that was producing it, existed in its own pocket dimension, but as he had explained to Martha, it was affecting _this_ dimension, would exist at all points in time, and could be accessed from the Vortex. It was practically pulling this dimension into the pocket, which he could now see was helping with the process. It was one of those mathematical intricacies that Parangelia had pulled off to create this calamity. The Doctor had not appreciated how clever the man was until right now. And oh, how he hated that combination: intelligent, along with a bit psychotic.

Only tossing a chaotic time event into the pocket dimension could undo the orderly mesh. _He_ was just such an event. A traveller through time who had messed with the ebb and flow, flouting the laws of his people, for more years than he actually cared to count. Someone who had hopped across and over events for amusement, out of necessity and for every reason in-between. His existence was chaos. Time was in his gut, in his very DNA, and it was in no sort of order. He was a Time Lord... the only one who could confuse the Lineator enough to make it actually _stop_. His person would set it back far enough that it probably wouldn't be able to start up again.

And he could see it. A sickly blue glow that was so pale, it was almost white. It clearly did not belong in the Vortex as it was. Wherever they were in time, the whitish glow had not succeeded yet in pulling taut all events into one long, fragile string.

He knew this, and shouted, "Ha, ha!" He mentally navigated the TARDIS to chase the white line, giving himself one hell of a migraine in the process. He was now more sure than ever that using the sonic function in his brain the way he'd planned to would bloody well kill him.

His hearts sank. He wasn't ready. Though, perhaps he'd have a bit of time with Martha before that happened...

Wait, what was he thinking? He'd have all the time in the world, if he wanted. Maybe he'd be able to talk to her about these events and apologise for everything. And ask her how the hell she had accomplished some of the things she had, if she really was just a human woman. He almost wished he'd had the wherewithal to ask more questions on that day in Adam Mitchell's neighbourhood, and the foresight to give Martha a bit more leeway a few minutes ago when he'd turned her loose into a virtual time paradox. But then again...

Time. Wasting time.

The TARDIS was now hovering, flying just above the white line at God-knew-how fast.

He turned to take one last look at the Console. "I'm sorry," he said to it.

Eight centuries of adventure with this vessel was flashing before his eyes. He was thinking of another several centuries in which she would pine for him, if he never came back. She would fly through the Vortex until perhaps it dumped her out somewhere, and she would eventually languish. It would be the same pining _he_ would do for _her,_ if he faced the possibility of eternity without her. And he _had,_ more than once, had to seriously contemplate this.

Before he could have more thoughts of pathos and woe, he walked halfway back up the ramp toward the console, let out a great cry for courage, got a running start and threw himself out the TARDIS' door. He was almost immediately caught in a blinding white net.

At incredible speed, he was pulled headfirst through the tunnel, something like air, more like _time_ rocketing past his ears and eyes, through his hair and pounding against his body. Straight away, he began to hear the filaments of events pulling apart, and in some cases whipping and tearing. The sound was deafening, and he closed his eyes against it, though he could not move his arms to cover his ears to block out the actual din. He screamed in protest, hoping that his voice in his own head would counteract the horrible noise of time combatting yet another manipulation.

It was terrifying. It was loud. It was fast. It was cold and hot at the same time. It was unnatural. It was something from which, in this moment, he felt he might never recover. It was horror epitomised, for someone like him.

After about twenty seconds, the wafting time debris, of which he had warned Martha, began to encroach upon his senses. Again, he screamed as something wormed its way into his brain, which was already shrieking with pain.

Small vibrations worked their way inside. His sense of time and the presence of the world and universe around him were rattled. His vision blurred, and not just the vision associated with his eyes.

"No!" he shouted, and pushed it out. To concentrate on such a thing was a Herculean effort.

It was perhaps the most innocuous by-product of being without a capsule in the Vortex, and it did not stay out for long. Another vibration came through, and he tried to push it out again. But it was harder this time because then his stomach began to turn and burn. It was that same nausea that had caused him to double over in Parangelia's lab when the Lineator increased its speed. Only now, he had no leverage, nothing to hold onto, no Companion to take his arm, show concern, help him through.

He knew it was the threads around him, hurdling past, getting inside him and using his Time Lord-ness, the chaos in his body and soul and past and future, to extricate themselves from one another. The mesh was loosening, exploding again, going awry like it should! The sickness was evidence that his plan was working, and he wondered if it were a fitting swan song to his career as a universal trouble-shooter: repair time, sacrifice himself, die horribly, snuff out the Time Lords for good.

* * *

"What the hell are we looking for?" Rose shouted.

She and Martha stood in the doorway, holding onto the jamb for dear life, looking down into the Vortex as the TARDIS careened through at an impossible speed.

"You heard the man," Martha responded.

"A metaphorical rug stretching across time? What does that even mean?" Rose's voice was high-pitched and terrified.

"More like a rope," Martha corrected.

"It means you're looking for an anomaly," the leather-clad Doctor shouted from behind them, steering the blue box. "Something that clearly doesn't look like it belongs!"

After a moment, Rose said, "Blimey! Your friend is tossing himself into this mess?"

"Yeah," Martha said flatly.

"Is he completely crackers?" Rose wondered.

Martha looked at her, and saw that she had no irony in her eyes whatsoever. It was a legitimate question, and a fair one, Martha reckoned.

"Yeah, I suppose he sort of is," Martha told her.

"Doctor, why are we doing this? Don't we just have to go to the beginning of time?" Rose called out. "That's what you said, right?"

"We've got to find his trajectory, Rose," he responded. "The beginning of time is massive, especially if he's unravelled everything leading back to it."

She shook her head in disbelief, then rejoined Martha in her search for a time anomaly in the middle of the Vortex.

"There it is!" Martha screamed. "There!"

"Where?" the Doctor screamed back. "Coordinates?"

"No time for that! Look!"

He switched his navigation screen to a proper channel to _see_ the anomaly they were searching for.

"Gotcha," he growled. "Hold on, ladies!"

The TARDIS careened downward, and the two women turned all twenty of their knuckles white in gripping the door frame. They screamed in protest, almost being thrown out the door by the rough ride.

Suddenly, the entire vessel jostled hard. Rose let out a blood-curdling scream as she lost her grip and fell through the door.

"Doctor, she fell!" Martha said sternly. "You've got to catch her!"

"Rose!" he cried out, his face in utter panic. He swore as he worked to change the flight path of a vessel that wasn't _really_ meant for this kind of flying. "Get ready to grab her!"

"Grab her? Are you kidding?" Martha yelled. "Can't you lock onto her somehow, and make the TARDIS, like... I don't know, materialise around her? Doesn't it do that?"

The Doctor looked at her with his blue eyes as wide as saucers. "Yes! Yes it does! That's fantastic!"

He threw a few switches, and Martha watched with fascination as this almost wholly unfamiliar man did a very familiar jig around the console. He talked to himself as he went. His feet shuffled on the floor, his face reflected an exhilarated urgency that was totally unmistakable as the Doctor.

He jammed a toggle into place, and waited as the TARDIS, again, changed positions. It seemed to turn backwards and move even faster through the Vortex.

"What are you doing?" she screamed as she had to grab on, yet again, to stay alive.

"Trying to get ahead of her!" he called back. "It's easier than trying to materialise while chasing her! Isn't it?"

Martha didn't answer, because she had no idea how. She closed her eyes tight and said a little prayer that they would get Rose back in a hurry. If nothing else, she knew the Doctor would not rest until he had her back in the fold, and he certainly would not cast her well-being aside to help _himself_. With _her_ Doctor unravelling the mesh, the universe was no longer at stake, but the lives of her Doctor and Rose were. _This_ Doctor would have no trouble choosing who to save, if it came down to it.

Not to mention, as she understood it, the Doctor in this period of his life _needed_ Rose to help him heal, to help him become the frustrating, tormented man that Martha knew. As infuriating as it was to live with him sometimes, he was who he was, she loved him, and she'd not have him any other way. So, what would happen to his timeline if Rose was lost now, rather than later?

Martha heard the gears of the TARDIS change and churn, indicating a dematerialisation. It was clear within seconds that the Doctor had missed, that Rose was not, in fact in the console room.

"Where is she?" Martha asked in a panic. She forgot herself for a moment, and stepped away, from the door, taking advantage of a temporary lull in the TARDIS' turbulence.

As if on cue, something heavy fell through the door at a great speed and smashed against the Time Rotor, then slumped down to the console, then fell to the floor. For a split second Martha wondered what it was, but a quick glance let her know that it was Rose, and she was completely knocked out.

The Doctor cried out her name and began to advance on her, but Martha scolded him back to the controls. "I'll take care of her - you just concentrate on finding that tarpaulin again!"

"My instruments are imprecise," he protested. "That's why I had the two of you at the door!"

Martha rushed forward and knelt. "Yeah, well, things have changed, haven't they? Our resources have run thin!"

She forced open Rose's eyes, and determined that no vessels had burst, but her pupils indicated concussion. She sighed, and made the decision to keep Rose unconscious - it would be easier to have _her_ Doctor come into and out of the TARDIS with no fuss nor muss, if Rose never saw him.

"Is she all right?" asked the Doctor, his eyes still on the screen.

"Concussion."

"Concussion!" he shouted. "How bad?"

"Not that bad," Martha shouted back. "Just... eyes on the road, okay? You can wake her when we're done!"

"Well, what the hell _was_ that? How can we have _hit_ something within the Vortex? It's not like you can run into a lamppost out here!"

"It's the walls of the Vortex closing in," she told him. "It's happened to me before. It's how we found out about all this."

"How can the Vortex have walls?"

"Things in motion, Doctor, I told you, that's why we're here!"

He set his eyes and mouth in an expression of disgust and determination, and continued to fly. Once again, he spotted the anomaly in the Vortex.

Once again, the TARDIS hit something and was thrown a bit. Being kicked sideways, the door shut on its own.

"There it is again," the Doctor said.

"We must be getting close," Martha said.

After a beat, "I see it. There's the mesh."

They hit the wall of the Vortex again. "Things are getting narrow!" Martha said, holding on.

She ran to the door and opened it to look outside again. She could see a cone-like structure, as though deep black barriers were closing in around them, and a bright whitish-blue string ran through it like a long universe-destroying thread. This was the tarpaulin, and the fact that the cone was expanding meant that they had found her Doctor, and his trajectory.

"I see it! I'm going to fly into it," the Doctor said.

"You can't!" she said. She knew that the TARDIS was too big to fit inside of it, because it was in a pocket dimension. She knew that the Doctor's _person_ would fit, and that's all. That's why the Northern-talking Doctor was involved at all - the TARDIS couldn't fit, and her Doctor needed catching. She reckoned that "the Northerner" had been too busy thus far to wonder why _she_ couldn't just fly her own TARDIS into the fray to catch him... perhaps he surmised that some calamity had occurred that he didn't know about, and he simply didn't need to know. Spoilers, and all that. If he ever asked, this would be what she would tell him.

And yet, he tried to fly the TARDIS inside the tarpaulin, only to be rejected again, and jostled to the side.

"What did I just say?" she scolded.

And so, the Doctor put the TARDIS on a path that ran right next to the string moving through the cone. Martha marvelled at how the walls were expanding again, and as they dived into the mouth of the cone, the universe seemed to put itself back together. It was the Vortex, time spread out infinitely as she knew it, and it looked absolutely beautiful.

Suddenly they were spat out into blackness, and the Doctor gave a great cry, and the TARDIS came to a halt.

"This is the beginning of time," Martha mused.

"Just before the Big Bang," he told her.

They only had a moment to reflect before seeing the tarpaulin come apart and dissolve right before her eyes. Simultaneously, a dot appeared, being shot through the space, still moving at a great speed, though the cone, the mesh, the whole structure had come apart.

"There he is!" she cried.

"I see him," the Doctor mumbled.

Again, the TARDIS' gears rang through her ears, and she figured that he was trying it again: get ahead of the falling object, and let it fall through the door. His "mistake" had worked once...

This time, though, he was a few feet off, and the Doctor, dressed in tattered pin-stripes, fell against the right-side door of the TARDIS. Martha reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling his limp body inside. He fell to the floor with a _thud,_ and she shut the door.

"Now... whereto?" asked the man in leather.

"London, 2007." She gave him an address, and a date. She quickly checked to make sure that her Doctor was alive, then left him on the floor, just inside the door.

* * *

 **This chapter was a bit of a labor of love! So are reviews. Just sayin' ;-)**


	14. Chapter 14

**There's not much to say about this chapter... it's a lot of "ruminating". I'm at a point in the story where I'm struggling a bit - the denouement of the action is proving difficult. I'm not sure in what direction I should go...**

 **Anyway, enjoy. And review!**

* * *

CHAPTER 14

The man on the floor groaned as the TARDIS' gears did likewise.

"All right?" Martha asked, standing near the console, keeping one eye on Rose, looking squarely at no-one.

"Yeah," he said, getting to his feet. He as well, pointedly did not make eye-contact with anyone in the room, and kept his position near the door of the vessel. He rubbed his head and blinked his eyes hard, against one hell of a headache. Not just that, his ears hurt, as well as his eyes and most of the joints in his body.

"Oi," he called out to his counterpart at the console. "I don't suppose there are any more signs of the Vortex having a wall?"

"None whatsoever," said the man in leather, as though the whole thing were just incredibly tedious. "You'd think _one_ of you would remember."

The man in the suit made no comment. As he tested the muscles in his neck and twisted his head sideways and diagonally, he caught sight of the blonde, still on the floor. His eyes opened wide and opened his mouth to speak.

"She'll be fine," Martha said sternly, seeing him in his desire to intervene. "You _know_ she will."

He nodded subtly and turned his eyes away, leaning against the handrail by the door, facing away from the console. The sound of the TARDIS' gears became deafening, in the absence of anyone speaking of the anomaly averted, or the deception perpetrated today. Or, in fact, of the universe having been saved.

Now that she had seen the Vortex in all of this violent glory, Martha had a million questions about what it must have been like for the Doctor to throw himself physically into it. And not just the Vortex, into a piece of the Vortex that had been perverted, something called a _tarpaulin_ , that almost literally covered over the natural order of the universe and then got pulled tight like a tough length of yarn. She also wanted to ask about the Northern Doctor, the man at the console, who was familiar, and so foreign, to her. He was, if nothing else, a source of real fascination to her, and she almost wished she could spend more time with him. Perhaps one of these days, she _would_ get to know another incarnation of the Doctor, not that she would ever actually _wish_ for that to happen, since it would mean...

Come to that, she had a million questions about regeneration, and what it was like getting used to a new body - and not just for the Doctor himself. She had earlier mused on how Rose must have taken it when he had changed; clearly, she'd eventually got very attached to the more whimsical personality and more pleasant face. But how long had it taken to grow accustomed? Had she believed the new Doctor was really the Doctor? What convinced her? Had she been in love with the leather-wearer, or just the man in pin-stripes? What about vice versa?

If it happened to her, Martha, what should she do? Would there be an adjustment period, or would she believe it straight away? Would she feel the same way about him? Would he feel the same way about her (whatever that meant)? Or, would she maybe get another chance with him? And given the events of the last hour or so, what if he changed genders in the process? What then? Would a female Doctor still want to travel with a female Companion? Would the Companion want that? She resolved to request a serious confab over these issues as soon as they were all in the clear; maybe the Doctor could quell some of her anxieties about this, especially if he had ever experienced that gender-change before. Really, he was not a man who enjoyed expounding on his past and ruminating over the nature of his very peculiar life as a Time Lord, but after what she had pulled off with him today, wouldn't he owe it to her?

* * *

He had the mother of all headaches, but the Doctor hid his pain well. Although, his thinking was returning to a state resembling _clear._ And, for someone who had just dived headlong into a chasm of sickening time energy that threatened to tear him apart from his guts on out, and who had just seen a woman he had once loved, lying unconscious on the floor with a concussion, he really was relatively calm. He waited by the door of the vessel, which both _was_ his and wasn't, until it stopped moving. Martha was right; he knew Rose would be fine. Now that his path had crossed with his former self, though briefly, a light had been switched on, and he now remembered that Rose would spend the next few days in bed, convalescing, upon his insistence. She would emerge good-as-new, and for whatever reason, wondering about her father's death and what it might mean to him, not to have to die alone in the street.

There were far greater issues of the day than any he could address concerning Rose's physical well-being, which had been decided long ago.

Because, it turned out, as his old friend Mitéra had said, he knew exactly who Martha Jones was. That is to say, a _human_ medical student from London, daughter of the ambitious and intelligent Francine and Clive Jones, sister of Tish and Leo. She was beautiful, well-read, resourceful and staggeringly clever. She was not, in fact, a multiple-offender of personal timeline-crossing, and, at least as far as the universe was concerned, she was not kindred with him (nor anyone else in this room) in any concrete way.

Though, he did obviously feel a non-concrete connection with her; perhaps that was simply the result of having travelled with her, having seen (and been impressed by) what she could do, and the two of them having cultivated a friendship over the past nine months. It was the same sort of connection he'd felt with most of his Companions over the years, though, arguably stronger, especially now. She had managed to convince _him_ , more than once, that she was not human, that she was, in fact, on a par with himself. More than on a par with himself as a matter of fact. He had believed her to be in-the-know, and then some. Even with lines fed to her, this was no mean feat. It meant that she possessed, somewhere within, a deeper understanding of life, of time... of _him._ It meant that he depended upon her more than other Companions, that he trusted her more.

In a sense, he felt that he could give himself over... even though he had always held back from her.

For the first time, he actually turned his head and intentionally cast his eyes in the direction of the console where she stood. He could not see her face - only her silhouette, but that was perfectly all right with him. She stood in a shadow, yet it was like a fog had been lifted. Always when he had looked at Martha, he had seen something more than what actually meets the eye. There was the flaming question of who she was (which had been more or less answered today), there was intelligence, and there was, inescapably, irritatingly sometimes, _love._

He had been intermittently, and at varying degrees, aware of it for a long time. A lot of women (and men) flirted with him, but there was something different in Martha's eyes when they flashed at him and commanded his notice. It not only said _don't ignore me_ , but it pleaded with him, pulled him in, invited him to explore. Yet he had resisted. Part of it was, well, the blonde on the floor, and residual angst over her non-presence in his life, not to mention the crippling fear that something like that might happen again to someone he cared about. But, a large part of it was because all of this had been entwined with (and perhaps glossed-over by) the deeper mysteries of Martha Jones.

Human, she was. Purely human. And wasn't it amazing?

Yet one more question remained. Again he thought of Mitéra, the Coven and the ritual. Chaos - it's what had brought him to this moment in his life. _He_ had been the Dionysus of the day, the agent of chaos that had undone Parangelia's plan. But before that, there had been a great slowing-down of the madman's process, and one of the things that had done it was Martha. She had channelled something through him that had pushed the whole glorious, chaotic mess over the edge, and billowed through the Apollonian air like an atomic bomb. But how could a human have done it? And if there was nothing much more to be known about her, other than her essential humanness, where had it come from? It was all about uncertainty surrounding her, the unanswered questions, the circuit that had never quite closed. It was something sparking and unplugged within her, that grated on him as well. Could his simply _being wrong_ about her have caused that kind of explosion?

He had the distinct impression that Mitéra had known the answer when they had talked, and had mused over the real nature of the identity of Martha Jones.

* * *

A groan came from the floor. Rose stirred.

Martha knelt, putting her hand gently on the other young woman's arms, keeping her down for the time being. "Don't try to get up too fast," she said gently.

Another groan. "Am I alive?" asked Rose, before opening her eyes.

"Of course," Martha said with a smile. "You're in the TARDIS. The Doctor is here - you're fine. You just have a bit of concussion. So just keep yourself low until we stop."

Rose opened her eyes and blinked, focusing on Martha. "Did you rescue me?" she asked, very child-like, very harrowed.

"We all did," said the Doctor from the controls, his gravelly voice penetrating the heavy air, his blue eyes marred by an annoyed/worried frown.

As Rose began to blink even harder, and to look around the room, Martha made it a point to put herself in the line of sight between Rose and the thin man standing by the door.

As if on cue, Rose asked, "Did we also rescue your friend?" She was now craning her neck, searching for her Doctor's gaze.

"Yep," he answered simply. "Mission accomplished."

At that moment, the TARDIS came to a stop.

"Thanks, mate," a voice said from near the door, and light from Earth's sun flooded the console room as he opened it and prepared to flee. "We'll get out of your hair now."

"Now, wait just a mo'," said a voice from the console. His leather jacket creaked as he crossed his arms tightly over his chest. "I don't suppose either one of you would tell me how this all came to pass? How or why one of you found the other? Why the hell you needed to involve me and Rose, and _my_ TARDIS when you have each other?"

Martha stood up and looked at him squarely. "We can't."

"Fine," he said harshly. "We'll just try and recover, then. Don't mind us. What's a little concussion amongst friends?"

Rose stood up, in spite of Martha's advice. "Doctor, it's all right."

"No it's not," he shot back. To Martha, he said, "Don't let the door hit you."

Out of the corner of her eye, as she made her way to the door, Martha saw him reach out for Rose's hand, then begin slowly moving toward the corridor just off the console room.

* * *

Martha and the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, and turned to watch it vanish. The light brought back his headache with a vengeance, and he was obliged to close his eyes and sit on a nearby retaining wall.

Martha sat beside him. "Wouldn't you rather go inside?" she asked. She peered across the road at her flat. "I'll close the blinds if you need. Make you some tea."

The Doctor took a pause, then he sat up straight, looked at the flat across the street as she had. It looked inviting, indeed. Then he looked at her, her dark eyes, and the concern in them. He realised that he did not have his TARDIS, and thought, for the first time since throwing himself into the Vortex, about what it would take to get it back. Sure, the "sonic" was programmed to bring it to this street in London, sometime in the next day or so, but it wouldn't be as cut and dry as all that.

He felt fragile, and his hearts sank.


	15. Chapter 15

**My goal when I write any story is for all big questions to be answered, and for things to come full circle in some way (at least, in my mind). That's what I am trying to do here. It's difficult because as time went on, and chapters 14, 15 and 16 shook out, they wound up being shippy, which I had not anticipated! (I don't know why I didn't see it coming... I'm a shipper. Duh.)**

 **Anyway, I don't want the focus of the story to shift away from where it started, which is a) Martha's identity, and b) Parangelia's linear time thing. Martha's identity has been addressed... in this chapter, they talk about it outright. I honestly thought it would be clear by now, but I guess I've been a bit too cryptic! The thing with Parangelia, it's still alive in my mind, even though the plan has been foiled. I daresay it's not over yet. (?)**

 **So please bear with me as I try to wrap things up in my own abstract way. :-) As such, I'm not sure how many more chapters there will be. It's been a weird story by most accounts, and a weird journey for me.**

 **As always, please leave a review! I wanna know what you're thinking!**

* * *

CHAPTER 15

The Doctor sat with his elbows on his knees, staring at the light blue and white chequered linoleum under his feet. His head still hurt somewhat, but mostly it was his hearts. What would the rest of the day bring? Or the rest of the week? The rest of... his life, however long that may be?

Martha moved about the kitchen, happy to be on her own turf, unaware that anything other than time, space, Parangelia and saving the universe was on his mind. She poured piping hot water into two cups and set one in front of him. She sat down in the other chair, and for a moment, she said nothing.

Then, she looked him over and said, "It looks like someone put your clothes through a shredder."

"Yeah."

"I'll go and get you some intact clothes if you want, and you can stay here and have a kip."

He sat up straight and looked down at his suit. One of the lapels of his jacket was completely detached from the rest of the garment, as was the sleeve on the same side. The jacket's buttons were completely gone. His tie was torn in half long-ways, his blue dress shirt had two vertical rips, about eight inches long, one on each side of the chest. The seam of the right leg of his trousers was split up to the knee, and on the left side, the pocket had turned out, and then ripped off, leaving somewhat grotesque strings hanging from his hip. Other tatters and rips occurred all over, especially at the cuffs and hems.

He quickly pushed the white threads back into the pocket slit as best he could, then pulled the sleeve off, followed by the rest of the jacket. He tossed it on the floor and sighed. As he tugged at his tie, ready to discard it as well, he said "I reckon I can't really go out looking like this. I don't know where I'd need to go, but..."

"Well, you never know. There's probably an interplanetary crisis somewhere. You don't always get warning." She said this light-heartedly, more or less joking.

He smiled ever so slightly. "Can't very well save the universe in my underpants."

"Then when we finish our tea, I'll run over to Primark and just get you something to tide you over until you can get a change of clothes from your own wardrobe."

"Thanks."

"When is the TARDIS coming back, anyway?"

He gulped hard, and nervously reported, "Not sure."

"Okay then. I don't suppose you know your sizes?" she asked. She had an idea that he didn't.

He frowned, "Actually... no."

She chuckled and again, looked him over, this time to estimate his inside-leg and waist. He fell into deep thought once more, and did not seem to notice.

They waited silently, letting the teabags, and their personal issues, steep. After a few minutes, she pulled the soaked thing from the mug, wrung it out with her fingers, and set it aside. She kept her eyes on him as she took her first, tentative sip.

"Doctor?" she said, setting it down soundlessly on the table.

"Yeah?"

"The day we met..."

He knew what was coming. "Yeah?"

"You thought I was you. A future version of you. Didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"Because you had seen me before. On that day, when you were the bloke with the leather jacket and the Northern accent, and I came to you and asked you to rescue... well, yourself..."

"Are you surprised?"

She shrugged. "The info you gave me, the way you told me to treat him, the lack of any disclosure, the cryptic demanour, it makes sense. He thought I was you too. Himself. Whatever."

"Yep. You sold it," he said, with a tired, but proud, smile. "Sold it like a pro. You sold a salmon to a fish farmer!"

"You said it was the only way he would trust me."

"And I stand by that. Last of the Time Lords, someone comes along with that sort of info, stuff only really a Time Lord would know, letting it roll off the tongue the way you did..." he took a big pull off his tea, and it rather burned going down. "I'm either talking to myself, or to someone like Parangelia with stolen knowledge."

"It didn't occur to you at the time that I might be a future Companion?"

"Oddly, no," he said with a quizzical scowl. "Not sure why."

"Probably because you reckoned Rose would be with you forever."

"Maybe. More likely because I've never had a Companion before with the capacity to understand the tarpaulin the way you do."

She scoffed. "Seriously? You think I understand it?"

He smiled softly again. "Well, you seemed to. Maybe I've never had a Companion before who was quite such a good actor. Or one that I would trust enough to pull something like that."

"Ah _, touché_ ," she chuckled. She fell silent again, taking another sip. "How did you find out?"

"That you're Martha Jones and no-one else?"

"Yeah."

"Just, over the course of the that day in the hospital with the Judoon and all the chaos, it became clear. The way you seemed to try to get me to talk about stuff I didn't want to talk about..."

"I did?"

"You asked about my having backup."

"Ah."

"I didn't think I would do that to myself. Even centuries down the line."

"You might. If you were feeling cheeky."

"Maybe, but... well, with everything, you were playing dumb - at least that's what I thought. But you seemed to carry it extraordinarily and unnecessarily far, continually pretending not to know me, or what was going on, even when life and/or limb was on the line," he mused. "You even invented a family, and claimed it was your brother's birthday! After a while, continuing to believe it was a bit like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"But what clinched it was..."

"What?"

"Well..." he said, with bemusement.

"What?" she asked, with a big, almost nervous, smile.

"I kissed you, and the universe didn't explode."

"What?" she repeated, laughing.

"Mind you, I was already fairly certain that you, at least, weren't who I initially thought you were," he qualified. "But if you were, and I'd snogged you... well... actually I don't know exactly what happens when a Time Lord snogs himself."

She laughed out loud. "That is something I never expected to hear you say!"

"But it would be enough of a big, presumptuous time anomaly that it would probably have made us both sick."

"The way Parangelia's Lineator did."

"Yep. At the very least."

Then, "Were you disappointed when you realised I wasn't?"

"Wasn't a Time Lord?"

"When you realised I wasn't a future incarnation of yourself," she said quietly. In the back of her mind, her ruminations over the process and implications of regeneration began to boil again.

"No," he answered. "Not in the slightest."

"Why not?" She wasn't sure she wanted the answer.

He stared at her for a long time, and it was a struggle for her not to look away.

"Because," he said finally. "When I first saw you back then, back when I was, as you said, leather-wearing and Northern, I had no particular thoughts about you, other than 'blimey, this is weird,' and irritation over not getting the info I wanted. I was taken off-guard, not too sure who you were, scared of what the _enmeshed tarpaulin_ might mean for the universe. And, I was worried about protecting Rose, worried about opening the doors to the Vortex..."

"I get that."

"But when I first saw you in the hospital on the day of the Judoon, I thought, 'Wow, I'll bet it's handy to live in that body.'"

"Handy?"

"Of course," he shrugged.

"What does that mean?"

He looked away from her. "What do you think it means?"

"It means..." she began, blushing, and then she lost her nerve. "It means you should finish your tea and get some rest."

* * *

Martha hopped on the Tube at the end of her block.

She was glad for the alone time. She still was distracted by the whole _regeneration_ concept, and she had had only a few moments to contemplate her worries in the TARDIS after rescuing her tattered and torn Doctor... now, her wonderings had only increased.

She had wondered earlier if perhaps the Doctor _owed_ her an explanation on the topic, owed her the courtesy of answering a few questions. She had, after all, _pretended_ to be him, in order to fool a different incarnation of him. If that didn't _involve_ her in the process of regeneration...

She thought about what he meant by _you sold a salmon to a fish farmer;_ not only had she played the part well, but she managed to convince the man himself. And, not only convince him that she was a Time Lord, but that she actually inhabited his mind, his life, his little corner of the spiritual and cerebral universe. That was a feat indeed, even if she did say so herself. They had used regeneration as a way of manipulating a man into doing what they wanted (though, it did save the universe) and it hadn't been the easiest nor most comfortable thing she had ever done. Shouldn't she ask her questions now, and insist that he answer?

Because, the ruse aside, God help them both, it had almost happened today. There was no way she could look into that violent, churning cauldron of a Time Vortex and not know that anyone who fell into it was bloody lucky to survive. And she had seen _two_ people survive it! Rose was not much of a worry - Martha knew that she would live another day and see the Doctor into the next life, and into whatever angst-soaked, romantic drama fate had in store for them. But the Doctor, _her_ Doctor, could very well have died today. And even if the Northern Doctor had caught him, he still might have perished in the Vortex, and regenerated later.

She felt a little surge of panic in her throat. She had no solid idea of how these things worked - what if he was regenerating _now_? In her flat! It was possible that there was a residual time energy that had bathed him in the Vortex, and then killed him slowly (it had happened to him before - he had told her about it). What if she had walked away from him and left him to become a new man on his own? She hadn't had a chance to say goodbye!

But was it really a goodbye? Was it superficial of her to think she would _miss_ her Doctor if he regenerated? She knew that he'd be the same man on the inside, even if the outsides weren't quite as attractive as they were now. He'd still be brilliant and gutsy, ancient and wise - she could see that much in the eyes of the Northerner, and those were all things she loved most about him. Oh, but _her_ Doctor. She'd miss those lips, that hair, the way he looked and moved in that suit, the manic screeching of those Converse on the console room floor... these were all things that made her blood boil, and also made her life somewhat of a challenge. She wondered for the umpteenth time, would she, could she still love him if he changed? Wouldn't it be freeing somehow if she didn't feel that attraction when she looked at him after the change? Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad after all.

She shook off those thoughts, the adolescent _he loves me, he loves me not_ bit. Because now, along with the panic, she felt anger. Again, the Doctor had shut her out! He hadn't prepared her for any of this. What the hell was going to happen now? Would she go home and literally find a stranger in her bed?

She resolved, come what may, to deal with it with grace and poise. Whether it was _her_ Doctor sleeping off the Vortex hangover when she got back to her flat, or whether it was someone who looked entirely new, she would not show surprise nor fear nor anger. Whatever happened, she would remain calm, point out that she had spent the last nine months alongside him as he risked his life, so she deserved to know a few things about what happened when those risks proved fatal.

And that stoic gaze of steel he got on his face that said, "I'm not talking," whenever she asked questions, well, she would not let that stop her. If he was pissed off, he was pissed off...

Nope, she would not be deterred...

She exited the Tube, having been so wrapped up in her own mind that she didn't really remember the journey.

Absently, she wondered if perhaps the Doctor's very long life was somewhat like that.

* * *

Martha's bedroom was in a part of the flat that had no windows - perfect for a medical student, or a doctor, who would be perhaps working the night shift a lot over the coming years. The room went pitch dark when the door what shut, even in broad daylight. The Doctor found this incredibly comforting, and had fallen into a dreamless sleep, mercifully quickly.

He had no idea how long he'd been out when she woke him. He sat up with a start, his head spinning and groggy. He heard the sound of a lamp being turned on.

When he pried his eyes open, he found her standing over him, smiling.

"Glad to see you're still you," she said.

"Who were you expecting?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.

She shrugged. "Dunno. It's been a weird day. How about some tea and toast? You haven't eaten anything since before your little swim through time." She bent and set a plate with two pieces of buttered toast on the night table, beside another mug of piping hot tea. Then she left the room briefly and came back with a plastic bag from Primark, and wordlessly laid it on the floor beside the bed. Then she tiptoed out, and closed the door behind her.

He hadn't realised it, but he was actually famished. He folded one slice of toast in half, and ate it in two bites. Still chewing, he dug into the bag Martha had left. It contained two pairs of jeans, two long-sleeved tee-shirts, one in blue and one in brown, a package of socks, two pairs of his favourite Chuck Taylor Converse, both black and white, though in two different sizes and a three-pack of boxer shorts. The choices were eminently practical for twenty-first century knocking-about, though he did not in the least care for denim. Not for himself, anyway

For a few moments, he stood there in Martha's bedroom in his underwear, and just gave himself a minute to think.

Debris had cleared. The universe was safe from Parangelia (at least for now). He'd been through the Vortex, and it had nearly stripped him of his clothing, and his life. It had also torn the mask off some of his personal daemons.

He had been ruminating internally over the connection he felt with Martha, and _had felt_ all along. Hours ago, he had thought that her very convincing performance this afternoon had been the catalyst for all of that, but he knew that that, like all the other rubbish he'd been telling himself for the past nine months, was just more debris. In reality, she didn't need to _perform_ to convince him of how brilliant she was - in fact, perhaps _brilliant_ didn't even cover it. _Human_ didn't cover it either. She was both of those things, and she was neither. It was almost as though she was something brand-new to him. She did indeed possess a deeper understanding of life, of time, and of the Time Lord. And it wasn't just because she searched, it wasn't just because she went digging because she loved him... Rose had searched and dug and loved as well. It was because she was _she._ Because Martha.

He thought again about his dependence upon her, how unprecedented that phenomenon had been, before meeting her. In the chaos ceremony with the Coven of Chténes, he thought he had it sewn up, until it occurred to Mitéra that Martha could boost the effects of the chaos. Without that, he was now almost certain that they would never have had enough time to orchestrate the dive through the Vortex, and the risky rescue. And the rescue could not have happened without her at all. Together they had saved the universe because she trusted him - she did as he asked, and gave her all. And in a manner of speaking, he had already given himself over to her, whether she realised it or not. He could not do without her. If she left him today, how could he go back to an "ordinary" Companion?

So why not let her know it? Why not _tell her_ what was on his mind? That she was the most clever and dynamic human he had ever known? That yes, he had thought initially that she was a future incarnation of himself because of the ploy she'd pulled today... but that after he realised she wasn't, he was still convinced that she was _someone_. He had memories of her from his ninth incarnation, but he also saw something enormous in her eyes, something that connected her to the universe... to him. Perhaps it was all in his head, but what did it matter? Shouldn't he now explain that he was far from disappointed to find out that she was not him, because being so attracted to himself actually gave him the creeps? That today's events freed him from any doubt that she was purely, delightfully human, and it meant that they could be together?

He sighed and began to dress.

But while it was true that the rescue would not have been possible without Martha in all of her cleverness, and that he would have had to sacrifice himself to the Vortex in order to save the universe, because there would have been no-one to catch him at the Big Bang, he realised something dire. He had made a grave error, and would now end up sacrificing himself anyhow. Most likely, that is. If he had only opted to reroute the sonic pulse back through his screwdriver, rather than leave it in his brain, he might stand a chance. By the time Martha had gone over to the _other_ TARDIS, he had run out of time and had had to make a calculated decision not to waste any more, and to leave the sonic function within his mind. By then, the damage was effectively done. The window of time had been just after the ritual... but at that time, he had been preoccupied with threatening Parangelia with the swallowing-up of his pocket dimension, and then putting together the semi-suicidal Plan B.

And so, sure, he could be with Martha if he wanted... but they probably wouldn't be able to travel in the TARDIS together. He wanted nothing more than to start over with her, have that life of adventure and excitement and love that she had been longing for from the start. But now, it seemed he must choose.

What would happen when he summoned the TARDIS to Martha's front garden, out of the Vortex? Given the encroachment of time shrapnel from his "swim," as she had put it, and how much it had hurt him, he could now predict that a sonic function that size would very likely kill him. At least, it would kill the "tenth" Doctor. Then what? Would the next Doctor want to travel with Martha? Probably, but would he feel for her as _he_ did? Would she love him? Perhaps, but there was no guarantee. He thought about Rose and how drastically his relationship with her had changed when he regenerated.

So much uncertainty, so much to be said... so much to lose if things didn't go their way.

He could summon the TARDIS anytime, but it might very well mean the end of Martha Jones and the Doctor as they knew it (or as they wanted to know it). If he told her how he felt, and then died and everything changed... did he have the right to put that on her? To burden her with relationship issues that she doesn't think exist, only to knowingly change the game on her?

What to do with all that chaos?

Mitéra would tell him to embrace it.


	16. Chapter 16

**Ship ship ship. :-D**

* * *

CHAPTER 16

For the first time since she began medical school, a man emerged from Martha's bedroom. He was wearing a pair of jeans, a brown long-sleeved tee-shirt, and a pair of brand-new, black and white Converse. His hair was in its usual disarray. In one hand he carried a plate that used to have toast on it, but now balanced a half-full mug of tea, and with the other hand, he pulled the door shut.

"Feeling rested?" she asked, taking the dishes out of his hand.

He took a deep breath through his nose and looked about, as though assessing the situation. "Yes, now you mention it."

"You should go casual sometimes," she said, looking him over. "It suits you."

He wrinkled his nose. "I dunno," he said. "I feel like I belong on the sidelines of a children's league football game on a Saturday afternoon."

She smiled. "What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, I suppose," he sighed. "Anyway, it's better than a shredded pin-striped suit."

"Well, turns out it was all in vain, eh?" she said. "You can just change back into your own clothes now. Why didn't you tell me the TARDIS would be back this soon?"

"What?" he asked, more loudly than he meant to.

Martha's eyes drifted to the front windows almost involuntarily, and the Doctor charged through to the foyer and threw back the sheers. He cursed.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "Is it, like, the wrong TARDIS or something?"

He looked at her with a scowl. "No," he said. "But thanks for putting things into perspective."

"So," she said, clapping her hands once. "I'll just get a new travel bag packed up, and we can go, yeah?"

"No," he retorted before he could stop himself.

"No?" she asked. She caught an unpleasant rush of nervous heat. What did he mean, _no_?

"I mean, no, not yet," he said, wandering away from the window.

"Why not?"

"Because," he groaned, pulling his hands through his hair. "I programmed the sonic device to bring the TARDIS down to your street."

"I know."

"I gave it a twenty-four hour window."

"So?"

"And the only way for it to come down is for me to use the sonic device - blimey, I can't even call it a screwdriver right now - to home in and pluck it out of the Vortex."

"I know," she reminded him. "I was there when the plan hatched. You told me everything."

"So what the hell's it doing here?"

"You didn't bring it down?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, if _you_ don't know, what makes you think I would?"

He stopped moving entirely, and looked at her dead-on. "Don't you?"

She put both hands on her hips in exasperation. "Doctor, I thought we'd been through this. No, I don't know! I don't know about time or space or... sonic things! I'm human, see? The only reason I know _anything_ is because of you!"

"Yeah, yeah, I get that," he said, moving back toward the middle of the sitting room. "But there are a few things I just don't get, Martha."

"Like what?"

"Well, like after we were finished with the big Dionysian chaos ritual, and you were awake again, you ruminated aloud over some things."

"What things?"

"You don't remember? You talked about a Time Lord's view of the universe as though you had seen it yourself. It was beautiful, what you said. And disturbingly accurate."

"I did?" She thought about it for a few moments. "Was I under hypnosis?"

Now it was his turn to think. "I suppose it's possible, after a fashion," he said. Then, "You really don't remember? You talked about an old lady getting hit by a bus, and likened it to the molecules inside a salt crystal and the bonds between it and other molecules."

She scrunched her nose. "Oh, now I'm hearing it, I do remember saying it. I have no idea what I meant, though."

"You can't see it now? Couldn't re-examine your thought process?"

She looked inward for a moment. "I don't think so, Doctor."

" _Were_ you under hypnosis?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Maybe being connected to me temporarily through the ritual gave you that perspective for a little while."

"Maybe. That makes sense. The connection was fairly intense. I would stand to reason, at least to me, that it would linger for a while... like a fog."

"But then, how could you... when we were doing ritual... right before..."

"Yeah?" she asked, impatiently as he hesitated and sputtered his way to some revelation.

"First of all, how did you know how to do it?"

"You mean, to kiss you?" she asked softly, without looking at him.

"Yes."

She shrugged. "Maybe I didn't know it. Maybe I just wanted to. The Maenad in me took over."

"Is that all it was?"

But no, that's not all it was. She remembered having a specific revelation of _knowing_ how to give the Doctor the energy boost that he needed. "No, it's not. I think... my mind was part of the collective consciousness soup. It must have been on the air somehow. Was it an unconscious message _you_ were sending _me_? Telling me how?"

"I suppose that's possible."

"But there's also the fact that... well, the day we met - or rather, the day I first met you - when you needed a transfer, you kissed me. Could I have tapped into that memory?"

"Also possible."

"You also told me that the last time you regenerated, it was because you caused an energy transfer from Rose, and you did that by kissing her," she said. "I don't remember thinking consciously about that, but... well, let's just say that story has never quite left my mind."

He looked at her with widened eyes. "Wow. It was probably a combination of all those things. Messages from the universe, telling you to kiss me." The wide eyes morphed into a smile. "How lovely. Thanks, universe."

She sighed hard, and began to speak before changing her mind. "Doctor, speaking of regener..."

But he didn't hear her. "That still doesn't answer the question of the chaos."

She lost her nerve. "Yeah, well... it's chaos. What does?" she asked.

He crossed his arms tightly over his chest and fixed his eyes at some point on the floor near her feet. "Martha, what you gave me during that ritual... the chaos you forced into the air, forced through me... how could a human do that?"

She felt hot all over. Her hands shifted to mirror his stance. "What I did was nothing. You're the one who amplified it. Or, rather, the sonic did."

He nodded. Then, "But if you're not anyone mysterious, if you are human, and before we met, all you were trying to do was finish medical school and spend quality time with family... if there's no cosmic uncertainty about you..."

"Cosmic uncertainty?"

"...then where the hell did all of that chaos come from?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Mitéra described it as something sparking and frayed. An incomplete circuit. Something that grates on me as well. This is the chaos that is you."

She frowned. "And you think it's all about, what? Questions of my identity? Am I the Doctor from the future? Am I a Time Lord, or some sort of being with her thumb on the pulse of the universe?"

He frowned back. "Isn't it? I mean... I suppose now I know that I was wrong about all that, but... do I know that, really? I guess... I dunno, maybe my own uncertainty got projected onto you somehow."

She stood and looked at him with her mouth slightly open. She looked as though she was going to speak, but her words were getting stuck on the way out, so she seemed frozen in shock instead. At last she declared, "Boy, are you thick as a brick."

"I am?"

"Doctor," she sighed, crumpling onto the sofa, suddenly very tired. She spoke slowly. "Think about it. Sparking and frayed. Something hot with the potential to set everything on fire. It hangs out of me all the time, just going _bzz bzz,_ with nowhere to go, nothing to plug into. Exhausted, degraded to the point of volatility. Does that sound familiar?"

He continued to frown, and his face was, as such, totally inscrutable.

She continued. "An incomplete circuit. A force, a compulsion, that I'm putting out there that _never comes back to me_. That grates on you, and yet you _never return it to me._ "

She was near tears now, willing him to understand.

The colour drained from his face all at once, and the frown turned to a sickly gaze, and she could see that at last, he saw.

"Martha..." he breathed.

"Finally sunk in, has it?" she practically shouted, getting to her feet, before turning away to hide her eyes. She held her breath so she would not cry.

Silently, he chastised himself. How could he not have seen this? He hadn't been blind to her feelings before (only his own), but never had he thought of the _damage_ he was doing by travelling with her in that state. Unrequited love, or at least, love that she believed was unrequited. She thought of it as a power cord that had been yanked violently out of its source, and now hung uselessly, with electricity flying everywhere, ready to ignite something on a moment's notice. Every day it frayed a little further, the bare wires became hotter, more unpredictable, more exposed. Every day it became harder and harder to keep the whole thing from going up in flames.

And yet, Martha had been holding a lid on it every day for months and months on end.

"Damn it," he whispered to himself.

"Yeah," she muttered. "I even had to boost the chaos by reminding myself that you're in love with someone else. That you've never shown even the slightest interest. That you've even tried to get rid of me! All of that... well you'd be surprised at how much that sort of thing will feed one's inner chaos."

"You had to remind yourself?"

She turned, wiping her eyes. "The mushroom cloud, or whatever it was, abated for a few moments. The chaos seemed to be lessening. I reckoned it was because..." She stopped short, and thought about what she almost said.

"It was because I liked it," he told her earnestly.

"Right."

"The chaos lessened because the circuit became momentarily complete," he told her. He remembered now. Vaguely. "But you... you pulled the cord out of the wall again. At your own personal peril."

"Well," she said bitterly. "I'm glad I could help save the universe with my gut-wrenching angst. At least it serves _some_ purpose."

She stood nervously, one hip placed defensively out, chewing on a thumbnail.

He began to pace.

He went to the front window. The TARDIS was right there outside. He had not summoned it.

But when he had programmed it to come down out of the Vortex by the sonic function, he had given it a twenty-four hour window. Suddenly he knew how it had got there. This answered one question, but did not make the conundrum go away.

He stalked back out into the sitting room and looked at Martha as she stewed. He could complete the circuit right now, abate her inner chaos and whisk her away. It would risk a minor paradox - but wouldn't it be worth it?

When he had told Mitéra that all he had to offer anyone was adventure, and she had said with a chuckle, _t_ _hat is not the only thing you have to offer, especially in Martha's eyes,_ this was what she meant. He could now give Martha the kind of adventure she deserved: a full-circle sort of endeavour, complete with love and a measure of certainty.

But given what he knew, what could happen, how it could all come tumbling down... could he really put that on her now? Complete the circuit, knowing it might be torn open again?

Suddenly quite spent, he threw himself down onto the sofa. "Oh, Martha," he groaned. "I just wish we had more time."

"More time? What do you mean?"

"More time together."

She sat down once again, her body turned to face him. "Why? What's going to happen? Are you leaving me again?" There was panic in her voice.

"I don't want to."

She felt sick. "But...?"

He didn't say anything for an uncomfortably long time. He just stared at the dark television across the room.

At last he looked at her and smiled. "I bet I could live a well-ordered life for a while."

She did not understand. "I doubt that. But what do you mean?"

"If we leave in the TARDIS now, we risk a minor paradox."

"We do?"

"Yes, because I gave it a twenty-four hour window. Which means that I probably summon it sometime tomorrow, and it happened to arrive today."

"Oh! Then we definitely can't just jump in and go. Or _you_ can't. Is there _we_ in this equation?"

He nodded "There is."

She sighed with relief.

"But if I wait and summon the TARDIS, say, years from now, then... well, I risk paradox as well. Localised, though, and smaller. Mostly it would probably just turn me inside out, and the TARDIS would be very confused. There might be a few time loop pockets in this neighbourhood for a century or so..."

"Wait... years from now? Why would you do that?"

"To live a well-ordered life, Martha."

She stared at him for a few long moments. "I have no idea what you're saying."

He smiled. "Remember when we were on Apollon, and I said I didn't want to summon the TARDIS using my sonic brain because it might actually kill me?"

"Yeah," she answered, her eyes widening in panic.

"Well..."

"Oh God! That would have just been summoning from several miles! Not from across time and through the Vortex and whatnot! Oh my God! Doctor, how could you do this to yourself?"

"Well..."

"Tomorrow when you bring down the TARDIS, you'll die, won't you?"

"Well... yeah, probably," he confessed. "It's not for sure. But after all the rubbish I've put my brain through with the sonic embedded, not to mention surfing through the tarpaulin..."

She couldn't help it - she burst into tears. "Doctor! Why didn't you disengage the sonic function from your mind before programming it? You are _such_ an idiot!"

"I reckoned I didn't have time," he said. "It would have required a protracted period of deep meditation, and it might have come down to a question of my life, or the universe. I chose the universe."

She gave herself a minute get her sobs under control, then she asked, "Will you regenerate?"

"Most likely."

She swallowed hard. This was it. She was facing it head-on now. It was going to happen. "Well, then... I have a few questions."

"I'll bet you do," he sighed. "But I can't answer most of them, I'd wager. You want to know what things will be like after it happens. The fact is, I just don't know. There are no guarantees, Martha."

"None?"

"Not really. I'll still be me, on the inside, at the very core. But you saw first-hand how huge the differences can be. I'll still save the universe if I can, and planets and people. I'll still be one of the good guys, I'll probably still want to travel with you, but..."

"But what? What's the problem?"

"I might not..." he gulped. And here it was for him: facing his own current daemons head-on. "I might not feel the way I do. About you. After the change."

"Feel the way you do? But you just said..."

"Martha."

A voice in his head was whispering, _embrace the chaos, embrace the chaos..._


	17. Chapter 17

**I think you'll like this chapter. And also hate it. ;-)**

 **We left off with a major Catch-22 concerning Martha and the Doctor's relationship. He had "slipped," somewhat and had begun to tell her about his changing feelings.**

 **Martha gives us a very clear understanding of why this whole thing sucks rocks (pardon my Americanness).**

* * *

CHAPTER 17

The sun had gone down, and it had been four hours since either Martha or the Doctor had said a word.

She was currently sitting in front of the television, seemingly brain-dead, zoned-out. But the Doctor knew better; there was a veritable jungle of thoughts behind her glassy eyes. She was so deeply concentrated on personal matters that she was staring impassively at an international golf tournament, a sport that as he knew, she found utterly mind-numbing. Before that, she had watched a one-hour documentary on Limoges vases, narrated by someone whose voice could kill you with monotony.

He had laundered the sheets he had slept in, and re-made the bed. He had spent an hour fixing her laptop by hand, in absence of a working sonic screwdriver. It had been corrupted by a virus on the hospital's e-mail system, and he was able to write and launch a code that would simply eat the virus alive. He had washed her dishes and cleaned the kitchen from corner to corner. He had extracted all things past their expiry date from her pantry and fridge. Lastly, he had shoved his tattered suit and shoes into a plastic sack, then gathered up all of the bags from the rubbish bins in her flat, and headed out the door. He saw the TARDIS sitting across the street, and it gave him an unpleasant chill to look at it. By contrast to what it had represented to him for his entire life, it now was a harbinger of everything he could not have.

So he walked down Martha's street in his new "casual" togs, toward the skip on the corner, aware that his efforts at housework had been due to guilt, but bitter at the universe for putting him in that position. He had been totally undecided on whether to burden Martha with his feelings, with both of them knowing that might all change as soon as he brought the TARDIS back properly. And yet, he had let it all come tumbling out. _I think I'm in love with you. I wonder now if I've always loved you, and it just took a continuum of certain events to reveal it to me... you're wonderful, you're brilliant and amazing - oh how could I not see it?_

Ugh.

Why, oh why, had he said it, if he knew it would probably only lead to disaster? Because he wanted to. Because letting it out feels better than to keeping it in. Because part of him wanted her to just ask him to hold onto this body and stay with her.

But then, that would be putting the burden of care on her, freeing himself of the responsibility. Hardly fair. Who exactly was the Time Lord, here?

He tossed his suit and Martha's household refuse overhand into the large grey bin, and kept on walking. He had discarded roughly half of what had been in her refrigerator, and how intended to replace most of it, and also pick up something as a peace offering for dinner.

* * *

Periodically, Martha became aware of what she was watching on TV, and decided she didn't care. The Limoges thing had been moderately interesting (not that she paid _that_ much attention to it) but golf? She had a particular dislike of golf. Ordinarily, she would change the channel in a hurry, but it didn't matter today. Her conscious mind was on other things.

She knew it had been a bit childish not to speak to the Doctor all afternoon, but she wasn't sure how else to say, "I'm upset with you." Any words she could put to it seemed banal, too everyday. This was not an everyday situation. It was unique and infuriating and by turns, exhilarating and crushing. Silence seemed the only thing that would speak of it loudly enough. Not to mention, she had quite naturally withdrawn into herself, and had had nothing to say.

And now he was out of the flat. She didn't know where he had gone, but given that dinner time was approaching, she had a guess.

She sat and contemplated long enough that eventually, he walked back through the door with a pizza and two grocery sacks, without her realising that any time had passed at all.

"Hungry?" he asked. It was the first attempt at conversation since Martha had snapped at him to leave her alone.

"Yeah," she said pleasantly, shaking off her stupor. She stood up, examining the box he held. "Thanks for getting a pizza. Sergio's is my favourite place."

"I know," he said. "I could tell by the tattered menu on the fridge. I got a Margherita."

"Good choice," she commented, clearing a space for the large box on the coffee table. "I'll get some plates."

He set the grocery bag on the floor, and the pizza on the table, glad for a bit of reprieve from the cold shoulder. But the relief was short-lived.

When Martha returned from the kitchen with two plates, her head was hanging, and her face was set in an expression of deep contemplation. He watched her cautiously, took one of the plates from her, and put his hand out to access the pizza in the box.

As he did, she placed her hand on the cardboard, preventing him from opening it.

For a few moments, they were frozen this way. Finally, the Doctor asked, "Something on your mind?" He braced himself for the barrage of emotion that had been building all day.

They had already discussed regeneration at length; she had had lots of questions about previous bodies and personalities, about the process itself, and what it takes for him, and his Companions, to get used to a new Doctor. She had asked specifically about Rose, and uncomfortably, he had explained how, as he understood it, their relationship had morphed after his most recent regeneration.

"Was it just because you're better-looking than you were before, or is it something else?" she had wondered.

"That played a part in it," he admitted. "But there was more to it than that. Something in me that was broken... became fixed. Something in me changed, so not only did she see me differently, I saw her differently."

"From the moment when you woke up in the new body, or whatever?"

"Almost," he sighed.

She wondered if anything like that had ever happened to him in reverse, where a romance became a platonic relationship after a regeneration. He could not think of an example of this in his own life, but admitted that he could not rule it out.

She had asked these questions in a fairly straightforward way, mostly without making eye-contact, and without much expression. But when he had tried to reach out further, physically touch her and try to talk about _them_ , and not about regeneration in the abstract, she had twisted away from him and commanded him to give her time to think. And that's when the four hours of silence had begun

Now, it seemed she was ready to say more.

"Yeah, something's on my mind," she said calmly, in response to his question.

He sat back, but Martha kept her hand on the pizza box. "Okay," he said. It was an invitation to speak.

"Let me make sure I've got my mind round this," she said. "The TARDIS is outside, but only because you summon it down from out of God-Knows-Where with your sonic brain, sometime tomorrow. So if we got in it and flew away, it would cause a minor paradox because you haven't actually summoned it yet. So in a sense, it's not really there."

"Correct. Sort of."

"So we wait out the night. And sometime tomorrow, your pre-programmed sonic brain will activate the TARDIS and set it down earlier today, and then we will be free to hop in and go."

"Yes."

"But when that happens, you'll probably die."

"Given the other rubbish I've put my sonic brain through over the last day or two? Yeah. The odds are good."

"But if we wait a few weeks for your brain to recuperate..."

"The twenty-four hour window will have passed, and I honestly don't know where the TARDIS would wind up if I summoned it, say, a month from now."

"Right. More paradox."

"Sorry," he said.

"Okay, so, tomorrow you summon the TARDIS, and the one outside will become available for us to travel in. But you will have died. Or at least, this version of you will have died."

"Yeah." The word was almost inaudible.

She looked at him, hand still on the box. "This version of you. This version that I..." she gulped. "...love. The Doctor that I know, the one I fell in love with will be gone. And all that will be left is a fundamental good-guy, clever-guy core."

"More or less."

"So, the only way for us to be free to travel in the TARDIS as we always have is for you to regenerate into someone with possibly an entirely different disposition, who doesn't..." she gulped again, and sighed. "Doesn't look like you. Have your mannerisms. Doesn't have your same needs and desires."

He nodded.

She continued. "Tomorrow, we can hit the open road again, the Doctor and Martha Jones, but there is no telling how that will turn out, relationship-wise."

He nodded again.

"And at some point in the last eight-to-twelve hours, you've decided that you have, let's call them _non-platonic_ feelings for me. Much like I do for you."

"Not _decided,_ Martha. _Realised._ The Vortex, and the whole experience with the..."

"And you thought it would be a _good_ idea to tell me?" she interrupted, loudly. "Knowing that tomorrow, you will almost certainly be a different man? That I will lose it all... and _know_ about it?"

"No, I didn't think it was a good idea."

"But you told me anyway."

"I couldn't stop myself," he said, like a child.

"So my choices are as follows. One: we could stay here, and I could live with you. Try to build a life, a relationship together." Her voice broke at last. "I could wake up every day to _that_ face, _those_ eyes, _that_ voice, _that_ smile, _those_ lips, and you'd love me and I'd love you."

"Yes."

She moved to her right and pressed against his side, taking his hand in her lap, then staring at it. Tears were falling, though whether they were bitter or sweet, the Doctor could not say. "You would make love to me with _these_ hands, and _these_ arms, and it would feel like _you_ and no one else."

He gulped. "Yes. Of course."

"For years. Decades."

"Maybe forever, if you wanted."

"But it would cause a localised paradox, with time-loops dotting the neighbourhood for at least a century, and for the _coup de grâce,_ you might never get your TARDIS back."

"Trading chaos for a well-ordered life with you," he said, trying to smile.

"And after I'm gone, or at least gone from your life, you'd be stuck on Earth. You, the Doctor, with chaos in your very guts, would have no way to travel away from this tiny rock of a planet, and you'd have given up time and space for me."

He nodded.

She sniffed and tried to steady her voice. "Or option two: you can travel again, and I could come with you, even. But it wouldn't be _you_ , at least as far as I'm concerned, at least for a while. It would be a stranger who remembers your life and could give me the same adventure as you do. Some of the things I love about you would remain, and some things would not. It would be a major shot in the dark to assume that we'd still love each other."

"Martha..."

"So, I could travel with a new you, but I would still love the old you. And I would pine for it horribly. Grieve for it. To my bones, Doctor. It sounds horrible, but that's you... the way you are and feel and move, it's under my skin. Like, it's in my flesh And to boot, I would _know_ that you loved me as well, and that we had our bloody shot, and missed it!" As she ended this sentence, she was shouting, and she got to her feet and stalked to the window, looking out into the back garden.

"I'm so sorry," he said.

"Tell me again why you couldn't just undo the sonic from your brain and put it back in the damn screwdriver where it belongs."

"Because..."

"I know, I know, the universe. The bloody universe."

There was a long silence. Martha stared out the window, heaving, trying to stave off sobs that threatened to overwhelm her. The Doctor paced slowly back and forth in front of the coffee table.

His voice pierced those moments. "There is a third option."

"Yeah?"

"It's not a _great_ option, but it's an option."

"What is it?"

"It wouldn't stop you grieving later on, but it might help a little with that sense of lost opportunity. For both of us."

"What is it?" she repeated.

He joined her at the window. "We still have sixteen hours left before I have to call down the TARDIS. Have you thought about how we should spend our last night together?"

Realisation set in slowly, and her eyes went round with surprise. She looked up at him in disbelief. "Are you serious?"

Now it was his turn to take her hand. "Sixteen hours, I'll still have _these_ hands and _these_ arms. Sixteen hours to feel like me and no-one else." He was invoking her words from earlier - lovemaking, staving off regeneration.

"Doctor..." she breathed.

"It's a gift we could give ourselves before all hell breaks loose," he suggested. "A small consolation for what may happen tomorrow and the next day. And a _thank you_ for everything we've meant to each other."

She let the tears flow again. "But the whole time, I would know that it's goodbye. How could I do that to myself? Something would be ignited within me, but you'd be gone and I'd have to live with the memories forever."

"But at least we would have it," he said. "We wouldn't be mentally chasing around a missed chance at love for the rest of our lives. We would know that we seized whatever opportunity we had, in whatever time we had. We would know that we didn't waste it."

Suddenly, his breathing grew laboured and quick, as though he had become incredibly nervous, all at once. For the second time in their mystery-soaked relationship, he grabbed her by the jaw with the palms of both hands and kissed her, in a way that felt honest.

This time, she curled her arms around his chest and pulled. This time, she was not so stunned that she couldn't respond in kind. She let his tongue in, sucked at it, let it tease her into a light-headed stupor.

His arms slid down and across her shoulders, and he pulled her tightly, no daylight between them. Any part of him that touched her, it clung or pressed or committed fully. He was giving himself over, as he had told himself he would. He was embracing the chaos, in more ways than one.

When the kiss broke, more than a full minute later, Martha pulled away with her eyes wide, her lips not completely able to close.

"Your argument is eminently reasonable," she told him.

"It's one solution," he reminded her. "Again, it might not solve..."

"I understand the truth of it, and the consequences."

"Good."

She took a long pause, then a step back, fixing her eyes on the floor the entire time. "Oh, Doctor," she sighed. Her voice quavered, and she sounded resigned.

He felt he understood what was unsaid in that sigh, those two innocuous words. "Martha," he said simply, low.

She smiled shyly, still staring at the floor, and her voice still was not steady when she spoke. "That was probably the kiss of my life. Not probably - definitely."

He smiled exhaustedly, though she did not see.

"You're offering me something... well, let's be honest. It's something I've wanted since I met you," she confessed.

He did not speak. He knew what was coming, and simply waited.

"And frankly," she said with a bitter chuckle, walking slowly away from him and the window. She flexed her shoulders and bobbed her head from side to side in, showing that she was uncomfortable. "I'm feeling quite... _bothered_. Rather keen, rather warm. Which, I suppose, was sort of the point, wasn't it?"

"Sort of," he conceded.

"We talked before about lust and temptation, the epitome of chaos, the very chaos of being human... or at least, of being a warm-blooded, sentient, desirous being. Like you."

"I remember."

"I thought it was poignant then, given your completely aggravating former function in my life, and the things I wanted from you. If only I had known how I would feel today. In this moment."

"Tempted?"

"Horribly," she said, her voice breaking again. Her fingernails dug into her palms. "I'm hanging by a thread, Doctor. Like I'm a sand castle and the tide is coming in. If I look you in the eye - just move my gaze six inches from your shoulder to your face - I will crumble. I'll be gone with the tide and there will be no turning back."

"You can look. I won't let you crumble unless you say you want to."

She looked like she wanted to explode, or cry or both. She turned away from him once again. "I can't." She gulped hard, then, "So, here's how it will go. Tonight, we'll have some pizza, a few laughs, maybe watch a film, then try to get some sleep. In the morning, I'll hold your hand while you... do what you need to do. And whatever happens, happens. You can count on me to be there by your side on the next leg of your life... or not, if you don't want me there. Whoever you are when this is all over, I'm your Companion. Nothing can change that."

"Thank you," he said, a friendly, sad smile on his face.

"But if we gave in to temptation tonight..." she said. "You're right, we would know that we didn't waste our chance, at least. We would know that we did our best for one another, we took the risk, we fought for whatever _us_ there may be. But I don't know if I could face the sun once everything changed."

"Well," he said, taking a few steps forward. He put his hands chastely on her arms and stroked. "They say it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. It's a cliché, but it's the truth."

"Yeah, well, whoever said that never loved and lost _you_."

His touch was electric, innocently-intentioned though it may have been. Everything he did just added kindling to the fire. How could he think this was a well-ordered life, in any sense?

At last, she looked at him squarely, searched his burning brown eyes and asked, "Are you _certain_ you're not the real Dionysus?"


	18. Chapter 18

**If you'll recall, when we left off, the Doctor had offered himself to Martha for a one-night stand sort of thing, as a swan song to his tenure in his tenth body (but also, feelings). She turned him down in favor of the path-of-least-amount-of-angst, but it wasn't the easiest decision.**

 **I'm frankly not sure how I feel about this chapter. I toiled over the meditation thing quite a bit... I hope you don't find it too _deus ex machina_. But since there was a lot of mysticism in the plot anyway, it seemed rather fitting. Anyway, it's kind of not the point. The point of all this was to explore the relationship issues between the Doctor and Martha anyhow, and we've done that... we'll do more. ;-)**

* * *

CHAPTER 18

What film goes best with a Margherita pizza?

" _Back to the Future?_ " Martha asked, holding up the 3-DVD set that her brother had recently returned to her. She had tossed it onto an end table, and it had been sitting there ever since. "Or is that like asking a medical student training in A&E to watch _ER_? Ranting about the inaccuracies and rolling your eyes over the melodrama?"

He smiled. "No, it's fine. It's a good film. It rather aptly tackles the real-world problem of endangering one's own existence by interfering with the predestined initial meeting of one's parents."

He was only half-joking.

And so they watched, and they ate.

"Thing is," the Doctor commented when Doc Brown pointed out that Marty McFly's siblings were being erased from the photograph in his pocket, and he would be next. "Once events are set in motion, once Marty travels back in time and comes face-to-face with his father in 1955, the very existence of the photograph _at all_ is problematic. The paper, the ink used to print it... why would it even exist, if Marty and his siblings didn't exist? Wouldn't the tactile experience of the photo be fading away, not just the images thereupon? Or, maybe the photograph itself would exist, but someone else would be in it. Why are the siblings disappearing, but nothing is appearing in its place? Did Marty's actions cause a Butterfly Effect that led to someone snapping a picture of random greenery sometime in the early 1980's?"

Martha paused the DVD and laughed. "Okay, so what would _actually_ happen if I interfered with my parents' meeting?"

"It would depend," he said, taking a bite, now talking with his mouth full. "On if and how yours, your siblings' or your parents' lives are entwined, if at all, with fixed points and other events. If we were faced with the question for real, I'd probably be able to see the salt crystal, the way you described, but as it stands, it's all hypothetical to me. It is entirely possible that if you interfered with what you knew to be their first meeting, they would simply cross paths another way, on another day. Or, nothing would happen... someone else in the world would effectively take your place, or more likely lots of someones. Your job, your seat at school, any friendships or relationships you may have had, houses you might have bought, lives you may have saved, et cetera. Of course, barring all of that, there's a small chance of creating a tangent dimension..."

"Wow."

"Well, you asked."

"So, as it turns out, you really _can't_ watch this movie. Just like I can't watch _ER._ "

He smirked. "I guess not. But it does a better job of treating time travel than any other film made purely for entertainment."

"Really? Because Bill and Ted travel in a phone box."

"I'm going to pretend that you didn't just admit to having seen that film. I'd like to respect you in the morning."

When the film was over, they decided to walk to the pastry shop round the corner and get some desserts, then watch _Back to the Future II._ The cause-to-effect relationships of events in this film caused the Doctor to rant even more. They both laughed out loud when Doc Brown drew a straight line on a chalkboard and told Marty to imagine it as "time," and then wrote dates on it, as though time were in any way linear.

"It's almost cute," the Doctor mused.

* * *

On the outside, it was an evening of good clean fun. Just two friends taking their minds off their troubles with a bit of Hollywood fodder with a healthy dollop of philosophical, metaphysical and astrophysical conversation.

But on the inside, there was a backdraft waiting to happen, and both began to wonder if they'd be white-knuckling the edges their respective comforters (in separate rooms, of course) by the time morning came.

Martha nearly crumbled again at least a hundred times in response to a chuckle from the Doctor, or to an eyebrow tilt, or to him sucking the olive oil from his fingers as they worked on the Margherita. It was a strange feeling knowing she could, if she wanted, just give him the word, and have him - at least for the night. The idea in and of itself was a major temptation, notwithstanding the spectacular kiss he had given her, and all the other odd little physical and psychological quirks that made him burn holes through her.

The Doctor couldn't decide if being with her made the gut-wrenching temptation easier or harder, but in the end, it simply came down to what she wanted. He still didn't want to waste this night, his last as the "tenth" Doctor who travelled with Martha Jones. Who _loved_ Martha Jones. And so, he would be with her for as long as she would let him.

* * *

Sometime after two o'clock in the morning, the Doctor sat on the sofa in brand-new underwear, with a yellow and pink flowered sheet under his bum, and a dark blue fleece blanket still folded beside him. Martha had gone to bed - he assumed she was now asleep, but no sleep was forthcoming for him. That was fine - he had too much thinking to do.

This was one hell of a no-win he'd got them into.

But he'd got himself (and others) into no-wins thousands of times, and had always wriggled his way out of them. Well, not always... but mostly.

 _Think, Doctor, think. Problem-solving is your strong suit._

What was the chief problem? He would die and regenerate in a few hours, while he summoned the TARDIS, rendering any newfound passions most likely moot, in his relationship with Martha.

None of the alternatives seemed acceptable. He was not okay with being _just friends_ with her again. In his current state of mind, the idea of it, in any body, made him feel a little nauseated, as though time would fall off its rails. Living without the TARDIS indefinitely did not seem viable, especially since adventure in the TARDIS was the life they shared - it was the root of their bond. And, much as it pained him, he had to consider life after Martha. Frankly, he loved the Earth, but he didn't want to be stuck on it any more than he wanted to be stuck on Gallifrey, back in the day.

So, what would be the ideal?

If he had his way, he would summon the TARDIS in a few hours, and remain in _this_ body. The only way he could do that is if his brain were to heal from all of the abuse it had taken already from the sonic pulse, and from the Vortex. He had not been completely without headache since the whole thing began, and he knew there had to be some reverberation, some identifiable damage that he just hadn't fully seen yet.

If only there were a way to undo all of that.

Well, he did have a time machine, and time was in flux again, the way it should be. But to cross his own timeline effectively, he'd need to find himself and Martha sometime in 2012 in Adam's neighbourhood, and then he would risk three TARDISes in the vicinity, not to mention the delay it would cause in saving the universe. To do that, he'd have to use the TARDIS parked outside, which would cause a paradox, and if he was going to do that, he might as well just drag Martha along and hit the open road again.

No, what his brain needed was time. Ironically, it was one of the things he didn't have just now.

He would need a long period of rest.

Or... what else might do it? Was there a way to heal his brain in a shorter time? Like, say, in the next ten hours?

He thought of a way. It was a long-shot, but he had to try.

* * *

Martha had a lot of the same thoughts. Fortunately, she was exhausted, and was only able to entertain them, and her irritation/anger at the Doctor, for a few minutes. Mercifully, she fell asleep very soon after retiring from the first two _Back to the Future_ movies.

She reckoned she must have been out cold, because when she woke with a start, it really did feel like she'd only just fallen asleep a few seconds before.

"You scared the hell out of me!" she exclaimed, sitting up in bed, clutching her chest and heaving. The Doctor was only a silhouette in front of the open bedroom door. She could see natural light pouring into the flat behind him. This meant, at least four or five hours had passed since she'd closed her eyes.

"Sorry," he said. "But I have something amazing to show you."

She saw his arm reach out in the dark, and in the split second before she heard the noise, she spied the shadow of the sonic screwdriver in his right hand. The blue light illuminated a patch of the room, and the lamp on her bedside table came on.

"Oh!" she said, surprised.

"I know!" he retorted, eyes wide open. His tone said, _Can you believe it?_

She frowned. "You can do that?"

"I just did."

"No, I mean, without causing a paradox?"

"Yep!"

"Didn't you have to use the TARDIS to do it?"

"Yep!"

"Did you do the summoning thing already?"

"Nope."

"You just went into the TARDIS parked outside, and rerouted the sonic function back into the screwdriver."

"Yep!"

Her shoulders sagged. "Well, blimey. I might have thought of that. I feel a bit daft."

"Don't," he said. "Because it wasn't so simple."

He went on to explain his train of thought as he sat awake on her sofa overnight, and how he wanted to try and find a way to mend his brain in ten hours.

"So I meditated," he said.

"Meditated?"

"Yes," he said. "Meditation at its most mediocre can help make you feel whole again; at its best, it can actually repair synapses and cause neurons to fire a bit faster. Maybe that's just for Time Lords."

She smiled.

He continued. "I thought perhaps if I could undo a small measure of the damage that was done to me in the tarpaulin, and in the Bacchanalia and in Parangelia's lab, I might simply go into a coma, instead of dying and regenerating. In time, I would revive, and then you and I could pick up where we left off."

"Not a bad plan," she said, nodding.

"It had about a one-in-a-hundred chance of working, but I had to try something."

"I'm glad you did."

"Me too. Because something extraordinary happened," he told her, getting excited. He sat on the edge of her bed in his jeans and brown shirt, and spoke emphatically. "As expected, I began to feel an almost immediate lessening of tension in my mind - the TARDIS was accepting some of my burden. If I'd been in my conscious mind, I might have thought that was weird, since she's not really supposed to be there yet. I would have thought that _she_ would rail against the possibility of paradox if she and I were to engage just now. But apparently... well, I suppose I must have underestimated her."

"Underestimated?"

"Her capacity to deal with weird stuff," he shrugged. "With time anomalies. And frankly, with all the rubbish I tend to pull because sometimes I'm quite the idiot."

"This is not about your idiocy, Doctor."

"Thanks for that," he said, with a touch of whimsy and/or sarcasm. "Anyway, I sat for... well, it could have been ten minutes, or ten hours for all I know - meditation is funny that way. However long it was, I sat for a while, and was snapped to by the sound of a barking dog next door. And when that happened, I felt a compulsion. I sort of stumbled through to the foyer and tried to unlock the door with my mind. It didn't work!"

"Hallelujah."

"I tried again. Nada."

She smiled. "You realised that the sonic manipulation had left you."

"Yeah!" he affirmed. "I had thought that I couldn't use the TARDIS for anything just now, not without causing a paradox. But as I sank deeper into the meditation, the answer became more obvious. We can't _leave_ in the TARDIS until it is officially summoned because it is time _and_ space-based. Taking away a TARDIS that isn't supposed to be there at all - whose presence on that spot had never been initiated by anything - would confuse the atoms and bonds of time and space. Remember the crystal?"

"Of course."

"But using the console to fix my sonic screwdriver so that I could use it to bring down the TARDIS, so that it could be there for me to use to fix the sonic screwdriver so that I could bring down the TARDIS, et cetera, et cetera... it's a circular cause-to-effect phenomenon. It's what I like to call _timey wimey_ , and it works because it's only time-based, not space-based. Do you see?"

She scrunched up her face. "Sort of. Are you saying that space is thornier than time?"

"In this case. But as long as they are contained, circular phenomena like that, they occasionally cause localised disturbances. People usually experience them as _déjà vu._ It's something that's been fairly prevalent in my life. I suppose it didn't occur to me before because..." He sighed, and smiled wearily at her.

"Because you were upset."

"Well, maybe my brain was a little fried. But also, you're right. I was too busy being pissed off at the universe. I could only see the epic, the tragic, the impossible way out."

"And when you eliminate the impossible, the possible, however improbable, becomes the answer," she said with a smile.

"Thank you, Sherlock Holmes."

"Timey wimey," she mused. "Isn't that the sort of thing that could have destroyed the universe, say, yesterday?"

He nodded. "If we hadn't foiled Parangelia."

"Nice," she commented with satisfaction.

"Speaking of which, do you fancy a trip back to Apollon, just to make sure he's well and truly foiled?"

"Absolutely."

"Brilliant. Pack a bag, and I'll meet you in the console room in fifteen minutes."

* * *

 **Hey, why not leave a review now? :-D**


	19. Chapter 19

**Again, trying to bring things full-circle... this is the penultimate chapter!**

 **I don't know how you'll feel about this chapter. It's a bit of a gear-switch. It shows that even a madman is just a man, so to speak.**

* * *

CHAPTER 19

With a duffel bag slung over her shoulder, packed with clean clothes for all occasions, Martha Jones locked the door to her flat and entered the TARDIS parked across the street. She had a smile on her face as wide as the sun, and dumped the bag on the floor near the top of the ramp.

"So, back to Apollon?" she asked, barely able to contain her relief and excitement.

"Yep," the Doctor said, reaching round in her direction to steer the vessel.

"Whoa," she said, lurching forward, grabbing his right hand. It was wrapped in a bandage. "What happened?"

"When I summoned the TARDIS, the screwdriver blew up in my hand."

Her eyes went wide. "Oh my God!"

"Well, it was a big job pulling this thing down out of the Vortex."

"I'll say!" She tried to undo the bandage. "So what are we looking at? Second degree burn?"

He pulled his hand away. "It's fine. My skin cells regenerate, remember? The hand will be good as new in twelve hours. Just hurts like the dickens at the moment."

She frowned and shook her head. "Doctor, I can't believe you were even _thinking_ about doing that to your brain."

"I know," he muttered. "I might not have regenerated from that."

"Thank heaven you found the solution in time."

He looked at her and smiled warmly. "Yeah."

She blushed. "So where do you get a new sonic screwdriver? Time Lord Accessories Unlimited?"

He chuckled. "I'm incubating a new one inside the console. It'll be ready in a couple of hours."

* * *

When they entered the staff room of the Parangelia Compound, the room was bustling with people. They had timed their arrival for the shift-change and wore the grey uniforms they had been given on their last visit, so they wouldn't be noticed.

"Oi!" Martha exclaimed. "That woman is wearing my nekko shirt!"

"Shh," the Doctor chided. "You're going to call attention to us."

"But seriously, I liked that shirt! It's my nekko shirt! My sister got it for me in Japan. It was special!"

"Well, I'm sorry to remind you of this, love, but you're the one who left it here. On a mission to save the universe," he whispered. "It's a tee shirt with a cat on it, Martha. We can get you another one. Now, will you keep your voice down?"

She retreated. "Sorry."

"Now, let's get out of here before Marcum realises it's us," he said.

He led the way across the locker room and through the door through which Marcum had taken them, as "new employees" on tour last time. They turned left, went down the narrow cinderblock hall, then through another thick door. From there, they stepped into the opulent Parangelia mansion, with its marbles and its gilding and its labyrinthine, torch-lit corridors.

After a few minutes of what felt like wandering in circles, Martha said, "Tell me again why we didn't just bring in the TARDIS."

"Because Parangelia will be despondent and desperate," said the Doctor. "He may think that he still has a shot at bringing his so-called order. And it's not unreasonable to believe a TARDIS can help him do that. I don't need him trying to steal it."

"Okay, fair enough," she conceded. "I wouldn't want to have to punch an old man in the throat."

At this point, they heard noises. They were the noises distinctive to a party, and as they walked forward, they could see grand double doors propped open, people in formal dress (and also the help) moving in and out. Across the hall, on a divan, there was an olive-skinned, voluptuous young woman in a bright salmon-coloured dress, verily snogging a man in a black suit, whose tie matched her gown.

The intruders approached and peeked through the doorway. A lavish ballroom was teeming with beautiful people in beautiful clothes, music was playing, the lights were just so, and a fountain of some sort of beverage was flowing at the bottom of a short staircase. Just about everywhere they looked, people were happy, holding hands, lost in one another. Almost everyone was paired-off, and either moving about with a partner on their arm, dancing with very little light in-between, or locked in some variation of what they had seen on the divan in the hallway.

"Wow," Martha said. "No wonder they like to party so much."

"Yeah, weren't they having some sort of banquet when we were here last time?"

"Yeah, they were."

"Interesting," the Doctor muttered. Just then, a staff member, wearing the same grey bowtie and vest as they wore, came through the door carrying an empty silver tray. The Doctor stopped him. "'Scuse me."

"Yes? Make this quick. Master Calase and his friends need more kabouri cakes."

"I was just wondering," said the Doctor in his most innocent, I'm-daft-so-just-humour-me manner. "What are we celebrating tonight?"

"Excuse me? Don't you work here?"

"Head injury," the Doctor said. "I know that I knew the answer five minutes ago, but for the life of me..."

"It's Master Araxia's birthday."

"Right, right," said the Doctor. "Silly old me. So Master Araxia is in there somewhere."

The server rolled his eyes. "Of course not. He's not been seen at one of these in years."

"So the kids and grandkids, they just celebrate without him?"

"Any excuse," shrugged the server, nodding his head toward the couple on the divan.

"Mm," the Doctor said. "Thanks."

The server tutted and sped off to find more kabouri cakes for someone undoubtedly spoiled and hormonal.

"So why doesn't the Patriarch come to his own birthday parties?" Martha wondered.

"Let's find out," said the Doctor.

* * *

From the Doctor's memory of the place, they were able to locate the long, dark passage that led to Parangelia's lab, at the end of the "stem" of a clover-shaped compound. This time, as they made their way down the obscure hallways, the Doctor felt no nausea, no signs of time being perverted. Briefly, he wondered if perhaps this might be proof enough that Parangelia was no longer a threat, but he also needed to know whether the patriarch was busy gathering forces to do something else that might turn existence on its ear.

They padded through the doorway and around the canister-shaped wall separating Araxia Parangelia from the rest of the universe.

On the surface, the lab was very much as they had seen it before - many tables, many papers, many equations. Except, when they looked up at the Lineator, only two melted hunks of something hung out of the wall impotently, and all evidence of manipulating time had gone.

They did not immediately see the man himself, so they moved to their right and followed a curving staircase up to what seemed like a second-floor loft. The space contained a perch from which he could survey the room and watch the Lineator do its thing from behind a not-too-advanced control board. The loft also had some makeshift living quarters: a cot with a rough brown blanket, a collapsible table with dirty dishes piled on it, a tiny sink, a small icebox and a hot plate. Beside the cot, there was an upside-down crate which served as a night stand. On it, there was a reading lamp, a few medicine bottles, two books and a framed photo.

Seeing this set-up, the Doctor and Martha looked at each other sadly. They both became a little afraid of what they were about to learn. They had come here just to verify that the Lineator had been shorted out by the Doctor's swim through the tarpaulin and that there was no hope of bringing it back to life. They had confirmed that, more or less. Shouldn't they just leave?

Parangelia stood in front of a wide window, which the Doctor could see had a mechanism that sealed out light if need be. But tonight, the patriarch was letting in the moonlight, and observing something happening below.

"Parangelia," the Doctor said softly.

"Bloody kids," the madman growled, looking down.

"Pardon?"

When Parangelia did not answer, the Doctor approached, and joined him on the left, while Martha sidled up on his right. They followed the man's gaze into a private courtyard, where they could see the woman in the salmon dress and the man in the black suit, previously seen snogging outside the ballroom. Now, they could see her with her back pressed to a stone wall, the dress bunched up around her middle and her legs wrapped around the man while he shagged her silly. In the absence of time zapping into neat strings, the lab was silent. They could faintly hear the woman's cries escalating.

It was a bit like a trainwreck - none of them seemed able to look away.

"That's my granddaughter," Parangelia sighed. "Elefia. Once upon a time, she was my favourite. The boy is her boyfriend, Triti. Or is this one Tetarti? Or perhaps a third one? Who cares?"

"Sorry," the Doctor muttered, not knowing what else to say.

"And that," Parangelia said, shifting his gaze across the courtyard. "Is also my granddaughter, Apele. Well, the one in the blue is my granddaughter. I've no idea who the one in the purple is. Never met her."

Martha and the Doctor followed his eyes to yet another couple which they had not noticed, this time two women, upon a stone bench. The two couples shared the same space as they engaged in their amourous activities, though seemed to be completely ignoring each other.

The patriarch stepped away from the window and went to the control panel at his perch. A buzzing sound filled the silence as a black shade moved its way across the window, sealing out the world once again.

He sat softly on a chair and sighed. He repeated, "Bloody kids."

"It's just a bit of fun," the Doctor shrugged. "What harm are they doing?"

Parangelia said nothing for a while. He simply looked deflated, and stared at the floor. At last, he said, "They're having my birthday ball tonight, you know."

"We know."

"Have you been in there? The whole thing is practically Bacchanalia unto itself. I guess that must have made you happy, eh?"

"Well..."

"Blasphemy," growled the patriarch. "Utter blasphemy. The whole damn planet has gone straight downhill." He had adopted the tone of a grumpy old man, which, to Martha, seemed quite sad.

"The planet, even?" she asked him.

He sighed heavily. "Doctor, Miss Jones, have you ever looked at the world around you and felt like, literally, the last bastion of sanity? Of what's good and right?"

The Doctor chuckled. "Yeah. Happens to me all the time."

"The Apollonians folded long ago," Parangelia growled. "A thousand years ago or more, they - we - folded to the ways of chaos. The old _order_ became meaningless. What is Apollon if we are not the cornerstone of order? If we're just like everyone else, then..."

"There's nothing wrong with getting on with your lives," Martha offered. "Finding something to be _happy_ about. It seems like that's what's happening, and you're missing out."

 _"_ Yeah, yeah," Parangelia continued. " _Chaos is the new order,_ they said, as though it weren't a meaningless phrase in and of itself. _The universe hinges on in and out, up and down, on coming and going, and it can't all fit into a nice tight package._ Rubbish. It's just excuses."

"Excuses for what?" she wondered.

He gestured toward the window. "You saw! For indulgence! For giving into the the flesh! Hedonism!"

Martha's eyebrows went up. "Oh, I see."

The Doctor stepped forward and spoke earnestly. "Well, Araxia, let me tell you what the Time Lords knew. In their way, _they_ were the keepers of order in the universe, never the Apollonians. What you said was rubbish is the actual truth: chaos is the order of the universe. Webs have their roots in multiple places so that when a thread is pulled loose, the whole thing doesn't collapse from the reverb. Strings, they're attached just at point A and point B, and when you pluck them hard enough, and one end comes loose... well. Without that intrinsic, beautiful disorder, things really would fall apart. You almost saw to that."

"Wish I had," he grumbled. "Wish _you two_ hadn't turned up."

"You wish you had destroyed the universe, just to keep your granddaughters from shagging in the garden," the Doctor concluded. It was a _reductio ad absurdum_ argument, and childish, but appropriate considering what he was dealing with.

Parangelia got to his feet. "What they're doing, it's the root of all... it's what makes..." He spoke passionately, but so intensely that he almost shook, and he seemed unable to finish his thought. Eventually, he simply let out a frustrated cry and kicked a chair over. He walked despondently over to the wall to lean and sulk.

Martha wandered over to the cot, and the makeshift night stand. She picked up the framed photo. It was of a young, beautiful, olive-skinned woman with dark hair and a mischievous smile. She looked quite like Parangelia's granddaughters, though clearly the photo was older. Much older.

"Who is this?" she asked gently, though she already knew the answer.

The Doctor came up behind her and peered at the photo. In a moment of clarity, much of Parangelia's warped view of the universe came into focus.

"My wife," he said. "Ariadne."

The Doctor chuckled. "Ariadne. Of course."

"And where is she now?"

"Dead," he said. "She died just before my oldest son got married."

"And whom have you loved since then?" Martha asked.

"No-one," answered Parangelia, without hesitation. "I never... could never."

The Doctor came closer. "Araxia, did you begin studying Time Lord technology and methods after her death?"

"Yes, what of it?"

"And you say that _what they're doing,_ they, down there in the garden, is at the root of the problem, is the crux of the chaos. That _is_ what you meant isn't it?"

"Yes," Parangelia answered, barely forming a word.

"When you say that, you don't just mean the... physical bit. You mean the emotional bit as well, don't you?"

The dejected patriarch would not answer. He stared at the floor.

"Love brings chaos, doesn't it? Sweet, wonderful chaos. The Maenads, they had other ways of drumming up trouble, but love... it's one of the big ones." He found Martha's eye and held it. "So many conflicting emotions, so much beating and fluttering and throbbing and wondering and crying. It defies explanation and logic and pretty much everything else we're taught to believe is orderly. Hard to have an organised existence as long as you've got those feelings bubbling up inside."

Martha smiled, just barely. She felt he was inside her mind.

Still, Parangelia said nothing.

The Doctor went on. "Apparently, Apollonians got wise generations and generations back and realised what that chaos meant. It keeps life in the universe thriving, and how well-ordered all of that really is! And _even you_ believed it - knew it - for a time. And then she died."

Silence pervaded the room like a heavy, grey fog.

"Love... lost love. It can destroy the universe," he mused.

"Yes. Yes it can," Parangelia muttered.

"Araxia," said the Doctor, hands clasped behind his back. "Do you really think what they're doing is blasphemy?"

No answer.

"Because," he continued. "To do what you did... wow. You must have studied the tomes of the Time Lords for years. Decades on end! There's no way you could have worked out theories of channeling wafting Vortex matter without running across the Dreor Equations."

"I may have run across them."

"Yeah, I bet you did. And you're a clever bloke." The Doctor gestured to the sea of tables and papers on the lower level. "Given what you accomplished here, you'd have actually known what you were looking at when you saw them. And you made the Lineator anyway."

"Chaos _cannot_ be the natural order," the very sad man insisted. "Chaos and order are antithetical."

"Why? Because it hurts too much?"

"Because if feeling _this way_ is the natural order, then it _has_ to be wrong. It has to be chaos. It has to be..."

"You see, Master Araxia, the line between order and chaos is truly thin," the Doctor mused. He smiled and shrugged. "So maybe I had nothing to worry about, eh? I should have just let order take its course and turn itself inside out and become chaos again. Maybe the Vortex could have worked itself out, instead of having to fry your machine. Hm. Interesting question for the ages."


	20. Chapter 20

**The final chapter! A slightly bizarre, but hopefully also somewhat heart-warming ending to an incredibly weird story.**

 **I had a lot of balls in the air: chaos vs. order, time made linear, the Coven of makeshift maenads (and the ideas/concepts they conjure), Parangelia the madman, the Doctor and Martha's relationship, issues of love in general, questions about regeneration/the Ninth Doctor/Rose/the Doctor thinking Martha was himself from the future, the sonic screwdriver lodged in the Doctor's brain, etc. etc. etc. It's nigh on impossible to end a story in a satisfying way that incorporates all of that as metaphor or symbol or even as literal spelled-out concepts. But I tried.**

 **In the previous chapter, I tried to resolve the sonic screwdriver, and hopefully the questions of what happens to relationships when the Doctor regenerates (or at least put them on the back burner). I also introduced (perhaps clarified?) the idea that carnal love (romance, whatever you want to call it) equals chaos. - all those conflicting emotions, the upheaval within the body. And it is this very thing that Parangelia finds so offensive. The Doctor and Martha have been trying to preserve that chaos... well, why? I mean, yeah, it saved the universe, but why else? ;-) The Coven of Chtenes tried to do the same thing, as did the Maenads of Ancient Greece, and Mitera in particular tried to help the Doctor realise what he was looking at when he regarded Martha... so to me, it stood to reason that Parangelia, this man with enormous power, would stand alone on this planet that has long-since come to its senses. What better reason than a broken heart? I mean, with all those kids and grandkids around, you know he had a chaotic life, in a matter of speaking, at some point.**

 **This chapter seeks to wrap up the Rose issues, which I try to do in a lot of my stories. Especially if Rose has been a character in the story! I also bring Parangelia back into the realm of the "living," and try to assure the reader that the universe is safe from him. :-)** **Enjoy!**

* * *

CHAPTER 20

They walked away from the Compound in contemplative silence. This time, they hadn't parked the TARDIS quite so far away, so there wasn't the long hike to completely overtake their thoughts.

Martha was the one who broke the quiet. "So tragic."

The Doctor shrugged. "Yeah, but it's nothing new. Some people, when love is lost, they are never whole again. It's the oldest love story in existence."

"Cheerful," Martha commented.

"And the man who would rather destroy everything and everyone rather than suffer any longer... that's older than old. End his own suffering and take everyone else down in flames. The universe is rife with it - history, stories... histories that have become nothing but stories. Everyone can relate to it. It's just, not everyone has the means or opportunity to end the universe. Or, frankly, the deeply-seated desire." he said.

She let a contemplative pause lapse, then she asked, "Is that how you feel? Never whole again?"

He looked down at her earnestly as they walked, and she forced herself to meet his eye. "No, it's not," he answered.

"It's just..."

"I know," he interrupted. "I know what you think, and... well, maybe a few months ago my answer would have been different. But I'm very, very old Martha."

"And you've learned how to just get the hell over things?"

"Partly," he said. "And part of me will never learn that. The point is, with my people gone... well, life is short. Not so much _my_ life, but everyone else's. You may have as few as sixty years left, so I reckon I just have to seize the day."

And with that, he seized her hand.

"Is that what this is all about? Seizing the day?" she wondered.

"Not exclusively, but..." he sighed, and stopped, turning to face her. "Do you really want to analyse this, Martha? Or do you want to enjoy it, and just let the chips fall where they may?"

"Sorry... I'm..."

"I know you don't want to get hurt," he interrupted again. "I understand that. I don't either, frankly. But I'm sorry - I can't guarantee it. Who can?"

She chuckled. "Touché."

They walked again.

He sighed again. "I'm over nine hundred years old. I have lived a lot, and loved a lot. Every moment of my life has coloured my existence, coloured the man I am today. Does an imprint of everyone I've loved, including Rose, remain on me? Yes, absolutely. And at the end of the day, am I really that much different from a human with a similar - though perhaps shorter - story?"

"No," she admitted with a little smile.

"So, relax," he said. "Let go of Rose."

"Let go of her, knowing that you never can?"

He smiled. "That's right. But also knowing that I can't let go of you either. And you're right here. She's not."

She was quiet, but uneasy. The Doctor could tell that she wanted to say something, but knew that he hadn't exactly given her free reign to air her fears. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"It's nothing... just some immature paranoid crap," she said. Then she changed her mind. "No, it's not. Doctor, how do I know you wouldn't rather be with her? I mean, I get that I'm here, and she's trapped in some alternate world so you can't be with her anyway, but..."

He stopped again and faced her once more. "Martha, something has become clear to me in the last twenty-four-or-so hours. I'm a Time Lord... sometimes I just start to know things, or they ring true somehow."

"What? What are you on about?"

"That rendezvous with myself, in the other TARDIS... it _needed_ to happen."

"Needed to happen?"

"Yes," he said. "Needed to, and was always going to. I mean, I wouldn't say it was a fixed point in the strictest sense, but so much hinged on that meeting, that whole incident. And not just the saving-the-universe bit. It was like a probe that pushed a bunch of rubbish through a bottleneck in my own life."

"Okay, Doctor, I have no idea what you're saying."

"You just asked me how you can be sure I wouldn't rather be with Rose. I'm telling you. Before crossing myself that day, I was in a rut. Hung up on the past, not ready to embrace the present, still not quite sure about you and how you fit into my life and the grand scheme of things. But the events of that day helped me get past all of that. I saw Rose again. And you, Martha Jones, your identity became, at last, transparent to me. And given those two things, I was able to see how I really feel about you. It's like all the excess buildup got stripped away, and I was left with... well, just clarity."

"Aspects of your life, pivoting round me, talking to another you, pretending to be yet another you. How very elegant."

"Indeed. I'd been wondering who the hell you were for months. Suddenly, I could see."

"You're avoiding the question."

"No, I'm not."

"Doctor, what about Rose?" she asked, point-blank.

"My time with her has passed," he said he said, insistently with a big, exaggerated shrug. "And I needed to see her again to realise it. When we were with the two of them in the other TARDIS, I saw it: that was another place and time. A different life for me. It felt primitive somehow. And seeing her hurt me. I felt the loss all over again, like a punch to the gut. I don't have any desire to feel that anymore. She's closed. Sealed. It's like Rose is a concept inside of a burning cage and I just can't get too close, even if it meant rescuing her. The pain opens raw every time every time I go there, and I would rather just heal, instead of letting it burn. I don't know if any of that makes sense."

"It's starting to."

"What happened between me and her... it was no-one's fault. But it effectively closed off a chapter of my life. It's kind of the opposite of baptism by fire... it's like apocalypse by fire, and there's no going back. I'm not that guy anymore. Now I'm... something else. I'm the guy who travels with _you_."

"Are you sure?"

He looked at her with deadly serious dark eyes. "Martha, when I think about Rose, I just feel depressed. Even when I think of the prospect of being with her again. Her entire space in my soul is tainted with pain - there is no other way for me to describe it. But when I look at you..." His features melted into a smile.

"Yeah?" she insisted. "You're not just going to leave it there."

"When I look at you, I see light. A future. All question and uncertainty shaken off, left behind. I see the cleverest woman I've ever known. I see a person who does not need rescuing or protecting. I see love coming back at me, unfettered, unabashed, in spite of our history. I see someone with finesse and wisdom. And perhaps you don't actually have your thumb on the pulse of the universe as I may have originally thought, but you certainly have it on mine, Martha Jones."

"Well, I've spent a lot of time studying," she joked.

"When I look at you, I see... just _staggering_ possibilities. That first day in the hospital, there were other things at work, of course, but the fact that I felt a connection with you cannot be denied. And I don't feel a taint, or any pain, or any questions arising. You are beautiful, and _so_ strong. You're exactly what I need, Martha. I look at what you've done for me, for us, for the universe, and I am humbled. I just want to..." he smiled big.

She matched the smile. "What?"

"I want to do this." He took her by the arms and kissed her hard, then let his arms curl over her back. Hers reached around his back as well, and they seemed to be attempting to meld together, to let not even air come between them.

When they pulled away from one another, both felt rather warm.

"You okay?" he asked. "Shall we take advantage of our freedom and drum up some chaos?"

She chuckled. "Definitely."

* * *

They walked toward the TARDIS with possibilities in their hearts, a kind of euphoria surrounding them.

But as time lapsed, their brains dug in further, they walked further toward the TARDIS, and a malaise set in.

"He's still out there," Martha sighed.

"What?"

"He's still out there," she repeated. "Parangelia."

"He's in his lair," he reminded her.

"I mean figuratively. He's still a threat," she said. "He's still despondent, still lonely, still pissed off... now, even more so. He's got all the equations he needs, and now he knows what _not_ to do. And he's got nearly unlimited resources..."

"I disagree."

"About what?"

"I don't think he has nearly unlimited resources," he said. "I think he's out of energy."

She walked alongside him frowning for a few moments. "You think?"

"I do." The Doctor was quiet again, then, "I think, given his disposition, it must have taken _Herculean_ strength to find the wherewithal to do what he did. Personally, I doubt he'll ever find that kind of _oomph_ again."

"Do you think he'll just stay in that room and rot?"

"If left to his own devices," I suppose.

"So... Doctor..." she sputtered.

"Actually I was rather hoping that talking to someone about it would help him begin to heal," he admitted.

"We're banking the safety of the universe on our counseling skills?"

"Well, when you put it like that..."

"Doctor, he needs something more," she insisted. "We have each other now. What has he got?"

The Doctor groaned and said, "Ugh. Okay. In honour of Parangelia, we shall not renounce, but _delay_ chaos just a bit longer."

* * *

They materialised the TARDIS, this time, just outside the main entrance to the Parangelia Compound. They stepped out of the box and began making their way, arm-in-arm, confidently toward the front door. Martha wore a knee-length, emerald green satin dress with black lace accents that tied behind her neck, strappy black sandals and a tumbling up-do. The Doctor wore a tux, with the brand-new pair of black trainers Martha had bought for him in London. They used the psychic paper to convince the doorman that they had been invited, then proceeded toward the ballroom

As before, most of the guests were paired off - some dancing, some snogging, some feeding each other off small forks, some stumbling through side doors desperately, in search of a small measure of privacy.

Although, once in a great while, a singleton could be seen approaching the champagne bar or the chocolate fountain, and this is how the Doctor was able to speak to a young man whom he took for a grandson.

"Wonderful party," said the Doctor. "Who organised this?"

The young man shrugged, then turned to face him with a champagne flute in each hand. "Beats me. Who are you?"

"Oh... I'm... I'm a friend of Calase," the Doctor riffed, remembering hearing the name spoken by one of the staff earlier.

"Oh, that's my brother. Funny I've never seen you around before..."

"Well, we just met. At the, erm, Kenjingen-tron-gen Club. Last week. Ish." He winced on the inside. This was truly horrible, as improve went.

"Okay," said the man, frowning. "Well, I'm Bruder. Nice to meet you."

"Likewise. Listen, how come your granddad doesn't come to his own party? Doesn't he like a good time?"

"Who the hell knows what he likes?" asked Bruder. "No-one's even seen him in over a decade."

The Doctor's eyebrows shot up. " A decade?"

"Yeah," said Bruder. "A couple of my cousins think he's been dead for years and the lawyers are just keeping it under wraps. Personally, I think he's around somewhere. Maybe he lost his mind and wandered into the cellar and forgot how to get out."

"Well, if you knew where he was, would someone go get him?" the Doctor asked, trying to sound matter-of-fact, or just passing curious.

"Sure," Bruder said. "He's our granddad. Some of the younger kids have never even met him, and I know our mum really misses her dad."

"Ah," the Doctor said. "Well, nice meeting you."

"And you... Mr?"

But the Doctor was sauntering away by then, headed for Martha, who was parked against a railing, watching the proceedings.

"I've been watching that guy," she said, pointing to a middle-aged bloke, dancing naughtily with a beautiful woman his own age, though surrounded by a herd of much younger women. He occupied the middle of the dance floor, and there seemed to be couples standing about watching him, perhaps waiting to talk to him.

"How could you not?"

"I know, right? I think he's the de-facto patriarch," she said. "In the absence of Araxia, he's the one they all seem to look to. I've seen staff ask him questions, and he directs traffic. I've seen some of the kids try to talk to him, and he generally deflects them. I wonder what he would think about bringing the real Patriarch back into the fold."

"Only one way to find out," said the Doctor. He plowed his way out to the middle of the dance floor. He grabbed the man's attention, pulled him aside and showed him the psychic paper, discussing something with him. The man seemed shocked to the core... suspicious at first, and then frantic. Within a minute, he was moving about the room, talking to different women and men, forming a group.

The Doctor wandered back to where Martha was standing. "What did you show him?" she asked.

"A floor plan of the Compound," he said. "In particular, the wing where Parangelia's lab is. And living quarters. He didn't even know it existed."

"They're going to go drag him out of hiding?"

"Looks like."

They watched the group leave the room in a busy fit, and they both separately assumed that the man had gathered his siblings: Parangelia's children.

Around them, the party continued to thrum.

"The children and grandchildren will bring chaos to his life," said the Doctor. "It's a kind of chaos that he's been without for too long. The rhythm of life, of the body, the heart, the soul. The grandchildren and their spoiled dancing, and their amourous activities... he needs to be around all of that. Drama and lust and general disorder. I think he can believe in it all again - he just needs to be welcomed back."

"He needs love back in his life."

"Desperately. The universe needs him to have it."

Martha smiled, and the Doctor glanced around the room.

He said, "You see that big bad bloke at the door? He's watching me. He will keep me from leaving."

"Why?"

"Because Parangelia's son said that if I was lying, he'd have my head."

"So you volunteered to stay?"

"Yep. Just until they find him and know that I'm on the up-and-up."

"Well, then, if we can't leave, then we might as well have a dance," she suggested, taking his hand.

"Might as well."

They moved to the edge of the dance floor, swayed to the music which had slowed down to a sensual, leisurely pace. And just because they wanted to, they kissed.

Martha sighed. "So glad he's coming back to this."

"Me too," he agreed.

"Because, if I understand correctly, as long as there's _this,_ the universe is safe."

"You understand correctly," he conceded.

And they kissed again.

* * *

 **Thank you for reading! And even if you've never, ever left a review before, why not leave one now? :-)**


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